KNEECAP's Mo Chara on legal victory over UK government: "There’s massive injustices happening up here, constantly – it just flies under the radar"

As part of his interview in the new Hot Press Annual 2025, Mo Chara of KNEECAP has spoken about the trio's legal victory over the UK government.

Earlier this year, Kemi Badenoch – the Tory business secretary at the time, and now Leader of the Opposition – made headlines after blocking a £14,250 grant awarded to KNEECAP under the UK’s Music Exports Growth Scheme. The government had no intention, according to a spokesperson, of funding “people that opposed the United Kingdom itself”.

In recent weeks, at a hearing at Belfast High Court, that decision was ruled both “unlawful” and “procedurally unfair”, and KNEECAP were awarded every penny of their grant – which they subsequently split between two youth groups on either side of the community divide in Belfast, in both Ballymurphy and the Shankill Road.

“This stuff happens all the time up here,” Mo Chara says of Badenoch’s actions, in his interview with Hot Press. “There’s massive injustices happening, constantly – it just flies under the radar. People in the North are subjugated to tyranny, basically. And the British government are getting away with murder. It’s only because we were lucky enough to have a bit of backing, with the platform we have, that we could go to a lawyer. Most people don’t have that privilege up here.”

 

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Mo Chara goes on to speak about how important it was for him personally, to give half of the funds awarded in the court case to the Glór na Móna youth organisation in Ballymurphy.

“I was basically raised by that youth club, so I thought it was a nice full circle moment to give a few quid back,” he says. “I used to go there everyday after school. When I was 15, I started volunteering with the primary school kids there, and when I was 16 I got a part-time job there. Then when I was 18, I was working in that youth club.

“Ballymurphy is where I went to school,” he adds. “And it was lovely to see that kids in this area – who didn’t necessarily have the same privileges that other kids would have had – were able to be bilingual. And lunatics! Young kids who were nuts, were also bilingual – and that was normal.”

In the Hot Press Annual 2025, KNEECAP were named our 'Phenomenon Of The Year', off the back of their acclaimed feature film, debut album, sold-out shows, and strong stance against injustice and genocide. Elsewhere in his interview, Mo Chara discusses oppressed languages, Palestine, Fontaines D.C., Glastonbury, a united Ireland, and more.