Irish artists Kissing queens and CMAT have become the first acts to withdraw from this summer’s Latitude festival, thanks to sponsors Barclays is investing in companies that supply weapons and military technology to Israel.
In a statement on Instagram last week, Pillow Queens revealed that they were pulling out of their July festival performance in protest of the festival’s sponsor’s choice. The Dublin Quartet states:
“Latitude – a festival we were due to perform in the UK in July – lists Barclays as its main partner. A May 2024 report from Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) details Barclays’ financial ties to companies that produce weapons and military technology used in Israel’s attacks on Israel. Palestinians. This shows that Barclays has strengthened its financial ties with companies that arm Israel. PSC urges people to boycott all Barclays services until the bank ends its complicity in Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians.
As a band, we believe that artistic spaces should be able to exist without being funded by morally corrupt investors.
It is for that reason that we have withdrawn from Latitude Festival.
Saoirse don Phalaistín.” (Freedom for Palestine).
Now fellow Irish artist CMAT has announced her intention to boycott the festival as well.
“You may or may not know it,” she wrote on Instagram, “but the main sponsor of Latitude is Barclays bank, where it has been revealed that I have increased their financing of several companies that supply weapons and military technology to Israel. has invested more than £100 million in General Dynamics, which supplies weapons systems to the fighter jets used by Israel to bomb Gaza.”
The singer/songwriter’s statement goes on to say that “with all the press surrounding the brave artists who withdrew from The Great Escape festival for the same reasons, Latitude would divest from Barclay’s, or find another sponsor.” She says this isn’t going to happen.
“I will not allow my precious work, my music, which I love so much, to be forcibly put to bed,” she continues. “Myself, and the entire CMAT tour crew that I love so much, refuse to be complicit in genocide.”
‘Let me be clear. There is a genocide taking place in Palestine right now. All I can do as a citizen is come to as many demonstrations as possible and try to follow the advice of the BDS boycott list as best as possible. This falls under that promotion. I hope that as many of you as possible reading this will choose to show your solidarity with the Palestinian people in whatever way they can.”
Festival sponsors’ ties to companies supplying the Israeli military in their ongoing war against the Palestinian people also led to Irish artists leading a boycott of the SXSW festival in March.
