Irish rappers Kneecap have been sensationally dropped from a top music festival following a growing backlash to their onstage controversial comments. 

Eden Sessions, a series of concerts held at the Eden Project, Cornwall this summer, have cancelled the hip-hop trio’s upcoming July 4th appearance at the festival, following onstage comments where they told the crowd to ‘kill your local MP’. 

But now the Cornwall-based music festival, which will also host Gary Barlow, The Script and Madness, has pulled the scheduled appearance.

The concert organisers wrote on X: ‘Eden Sessions Limited announced today that the Kneecap show scheduled for 4 July 2025 is cancelled. 

‘Ticket purchasers will be contacted directly and refunded. Refunds will commence from Weds 30 April 2025 against the original payment cards used. Please allow six working days.’

Earlier this month, video footage emerged of the rap group telling a jeering audience ‘the only good Tory is a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Tory’ while performing at a gig in Electric Ballroom in London in November 2023.

The Belfast trio are facing mounting criticism over a concerning performance in which one of them said ‘the only good Tory is a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Tory’

Eden Sessions, a series of concerts held at the Eden Project, Cornwall this summer, have cancelled the hi-hop trio’s upcoming July 4th appearance

The Cornwall-based music festival, which will also host Gary Barlow , The Script and Madness, has pulled the scheduled appearance

Kneecap with Cillian Murphy last year

Videos emerged in recent days of a Kneecap gig at the O2 Forum Kentish Town in London in November 2024 where one of the band members appeared to shout ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah’, and was draped in the Hezbollah flag. There was also a chant of ‘ooh ahh Hezbollah’

In the video a member of the Northern Irish band – which is set to play at Glastonbury later this year – said: ‘We’re still under British occupation in Ireland.

‘We still have old men in London making decisions that affect my life in Ireland.

‘And even worse, they’re f***ing Tories.

‘The only good Tory is a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Tory.

‘Kill your local MP.’

 It comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused the band of making a ‘half-hearted’ apology for calling on fans to kill their local MP.

The Belfast trio last night offered ‘heartfelt apologies’ to the families of two murdered politicians, Sir David Amess and Jo Cox, as anger over jibes aired at one of their concerts grew.

But the group said they they were victims of a ‘smear campaign’ and the video had been ‘deliberately taken out of all context’.

They claimed ‘establishment figures, desperate to silence us, have combed through hundreds of hours of footage and interviews’.

Festivals including Glastonbury which have booked the republican-aligned hip-hop group for performances this summer are being urged to drop them from their line-ups.

Home Office minister Dan Jarvis told MPs today that Glastonbury organisers should ‘think very carefully’ about who is performing.

And Labour MP David Taylor suggested streaming sites including Spotify should pull their back catalogues.

Kneecap led an anti-Margaret Thatcher chant during their slot last weekend

In 2021 Conservative MP for Southend West Sir David Amess was stabbed to death while attending his consтιтuency surgery.

Labour MP David Taylor wrote to Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis, urging him to take the rappers off the bill for the festival in June

In the video a member of Kneecap- which is set to play at Glastonbury later this year – said: ‘We’re still under British occupation in Ireland. We still have old men in London making decisions that affect my life in Ireland. And even worse, they’re f***ing Tories’

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured with the band) once called Kneecap ‘inspiring’

Mo Chara, JJ O’Dochartaigh and Moglai Bap (left to right) at the IFTA Awards in February

It came just two years after the murder of Conservative MP Sir David in his EsSєx consтιтuency and one of his close friends told the Commons today that the band was guilty of ‘incitement to murder’.

Asked about the apology from the Irish rap trio, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘I think you have seen what they have said, I think it is half-hearted.

‘We completely reject in the strongest possible terms the comments that they’ve made, particularly in relation to MPs and intimidation as well as obviously the situation in the Middle East.’

Kneecap are due to perform at Glastonbury on the Saturday alongside acts including Charli XCX, Neil Young and Raye, and also did a set last year.

While Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called for Kneecap to be banned after one of the rap group’s members appeared to call for Tory MPs to be killed.

Read MoreEXCLUSIVE Kneecap tell fans to ‘kill your local MP’ and shout ‘the only good Tory is a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Tory’

Badenoch said: ‘I think they’re apologising because they realise that people don’t like the kind of things that they’ve been saying.

‘They’re apologising because they’re worried they’re going to lose their slot at Glastonbury.

‘No-one who promotes the killing of politicians should have a prime place in Glastonbury.’

Asked whether the group should be banned from BBC playlists, Badenoch told the PA news agency: ‘I just think they should be banned full stop.

‘It glorifies terrorism, it has called for MPs, politicians, to be killed.’

Mrs Badenoch blocked a £14,250 funding award for the group while she was business secretary, only for the money to be handed over in November last year after the new UK Government conceded withholding the money had been unlawful.

The Tory leader said: ‘I think that was extraordinary, and I think Labour are looking very stupid right now.’