The British bank Barclays, accused of providing financial services to companies selling arms to Israel, on Friday gave up sponsoring several music festivals threatened with boycott by artists this summer in the United Kingdom.
“After discussions with the artists, we have agreed with Barclays that it will withdraw from sponsoring our festivals” in 2024, announced Live Nation UK, the British branch of the American live entertainment giant, which had signed a five-year contract with the bank in 2023. Barclays also confirmed to AFP that it had been asked to “suspend its participation” in Live Nation festivals in the United Kingdom in 2024.
This week, several bands withdrew from Britain’s biggest metal and rock festival Download, sponsored by the bank and organized from Friday to Sunday in Leicestershire.
Among the events sponsored by Barclays were the Isle of Wight festival at the end of June, where Green Day and the Pet Shop Boys are scheduled, and the Latitude at the end of July in Suffolk, where Duran Duran and London Grammar are expected. “Barclays customers who hold tickets for these festivals are not affected and their tickets remain valid,” the bank said.
“Accomplice to the genocide in Gaza”
“This is a historic victory for the global Palestinian BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions, Editor’s note) movement,” greeted the group “Bands Boycott Barclays” on Instagram, which is leading a campaign to convince festivals to break their partnerships with the bank.
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He accuses him of being “complicit in the genocide in Gaza through his investments, loans and subscriptions to arms companies supplying the Israeli army”, which is leading an offensive against Hamas in Gaza after the attack without precedent of October 7.
Barclays said it regretted that activists had resorted to “intimidation of (its) staff, repeated vandalism of (its) branches and online harassment”, and feared that this campaign would weaken “essential support for cultural events which benefit millions of people.
She refuted investing directly in or holding shares in defense companies supplying weapons to Israel. In May, more than 100 artists refused to participate in the Great Escape festival in Brighton, in the south of England, in the name of this boycott campaign supported by hundreds of associations, labels, fans and artists.
