The Somerset Conservative group are horrified by the on-stage chants made by the act Bob Vylan at Glastonbury Festival on Saturday 28th June 2025.
We welcome the festival as a celebration of great music and arts and are proud that Somerset plays host to this enormously popular event.
The festival has always had a political tone but today we have seen this go far beyond the realms of politics with the use of threatening and inflammatory language encouraging the crowd to call for ‘Death to the IDF’ and the use of the antisemitic trope ‘From the river to the sea…’
We have a commitment to a duty of care for everyone in Somerset, including our Jewish residents and visitors and recognise that the language used by this act may have made Jews in Somerset and at the festival feel deeply uncomfortable or unsafe.
We hope that Avon and Somerset Police will be quick to complete their review of the performance footage and believe that steps should be taken to ensure that acts performing at Glastonbury understand that hate speech and calling for the death of any individual or group of people is illegal and will not be tolerated.
