For Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, the prospect of a high-profile London music festival headlined by Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, presented a host of problems.
Mr. Starmer helped purge his Labour Party of antisemitism years ago, so it would be nearly impossible to imagine that he would stay silent about three days of planned performances by the rapper who released a song called “Heil Hitler” and once declared “death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.”
But the prime minister has also been under immense pressure by rivals in Britain and some of the highest-ranking officials in the United States to protect free speech. Vice President JD Vance last year accused the government of acting like the thought police in the way it treated conservative views that it did not like.
The plan for Ye to headline three consecutive nights at the Wireless Festival in north London threatened a political collision between those two pressures.
In the end, Mr. Starmer came down firmly on the side of condemning antisemitism. On Sunday, he said he was “deeply concerned” about Ye’s scheduled performances. His comments set in motion a formal review by Britain’s Home Office, which oversees immigration. On Tuesday it barred Ye from entering the country for the festival, saying in a statement that “his presence in the U.K. would not be conducive to the public good.”
Organizers subsequently canceled the entire festival, which had already been dropped by Pepsi, its principal sponsor, two days earlier.
In a statement on social media on Tuesday, Mr. Starmer said that “Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless” and that his government “will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism. We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values.”
A spokesman for Mr. Starmer declined to say how much the prime minister was involved in the decision announced by the Home Office. But the spokesman called the festival’s initial decision to invite Ye “deeply irresponsible” because of his history of antisemitism.
Over the years, Ye has repeatedly said he is sorry for his behavior before later retracting those apologies. In January, he blamed his actions on untreated bipolar disorder and said, “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite.”
Within hours, Mr. Starmer’s decision to prevent Ye from performing at Wireless prompted accusations from some of his right-wing critics that he was attempting to police speech.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing populist Reform U.K. party, called Ye’s history of antisemitism “vile, really vile.” But he said at a news conference on Tuesday that “if Keir Starmer was to ban people coming into Britain with whose views he doesn’t like, almost nobody would be allowed in. So, I think there’s a dangerous path to go down.”
Mr. Starmer has repeatedly rejected accusations that conservative speech is under assault in Britain. In a meeting with President Trump early last year, Mr. Starmer vowed that free speech is one of Britain’s “founding values” and said that his government would protect it “jealously and fiercely” no matter the content.
But he also backed efforts by the police after Britain’s 2024 anti-immigrant riots to arrest people under the country’s wide-ranging laws against hate speech. And he has supported efforts to protect children from online predators by regulating social media — which some critics, particularly in the Trump administration, claim undermines the free speech rights of adults.
Last October, when local police in Birmingham decided to ban fans of an Israeli soccer club from a match on security grounds, Mr. Starmer called it “the wrong decision.”
Police had said they worried that the fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv team were at risk of being attacked if they attended the game against Aston Villa.
Mr. Starmer said on social media that the police should have made a different decision, adding that “we will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets. The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation.”
In the case of Ye, the Home Office did not say whether potential violence or demonstrations played a role in its decision to bar him from entering the country. Finsbury Park, the venue for the festival in north London, is near Stamford Hill, an area that is home to Europe’s largest community of Hasidic Jews.
Michael D. Shear is the chief U.K. correspondent for The New York Times, covering British politics and culture and diplomacy around the world.
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