Barclays stops sponsoring Download, Latitude and Isle of Wight festivals | Music

Barclays has suspended sponsorship of all Live Nation festivals for 2024 – including Download, Latitude and Isle of Wight – after bands and fans protested against the bank providing financial services to arms companies that supply Israel.

The bank has signed a five-year sponsorship agreement with Live Nation until 2023. The suspension apparently does not apply to the entire contract.

A Live Nation spokesman said: “After discussions with artists, we have agreed with Barclays that they will withdraw from sponsorship of our festivals.”

A Barclays spokesperson told the Guardian: “Barclays has been asked to suspend participation in the remaining Live Nation festivals in 2024 and has agreed. Barclays customers who hold tickets to these festivals will not be affected and their tickets will remain valid. The protesters want Barclays to de-bank arms companies, a sector to which we remain committed as it is an essential part of the security of this country and our allies.”

“They have resorted to intimidation of our staff, repeated vandalism of our stores and online harassment. The only thing this small group of activists will achieve is to weaken essential support for cultural events enjoyed by millions of people. It is time for leading politicians, business leaders, academics and artists to stand together against this.”

Protest group Bands Boycott Barclays said: “This is a victory for the Palestinian-led global BDS movement. As musicians, we were appalled that our music festivals were cooperating with Barclays, who are complicit in the genocide in Gaza through investments, loans and guarantees for arms companies that supply the Israeli military. Hundreds of artists have taken action this summer to make it clear that this is morally reprehensible and we are glad that we have been heard.

“Our demand to Barclays is simple: withdraw from genocide or face further boycotts. A boycott of Barclays, Europe’s largest financier of fossil fuels, is the least we can do to bring about change.”

Areeba Hamid, co-chief executive of Greenpeace UK, also welcomed the suspension. “Live Nation did the right thing by withdrawing their Barclays sponsorship. It’s time Barclays stopped hiding behind the music and started facing it. This bank is the biggest financier of fossil fuels in Europe, has financed oil and gas to the tune of billions of pounds and has now been linked to arms companies involved in the conflict in Gaza. By stopping the greenwashing, the festival organisers are sending a clear signal to Barclays that it’s time to take responsibility for the destructive industries they fund.”

The sponsorship has seen several bands pull out of this weekend’s Download festival, which starts at Donington Park on Friday. Among them was Leeds band Pest Control, who said: “We cannot sacrifice the principles of this band and the scene we come from and represent just for personal gain.”

Bands Speed, Scowl, Zulu and Ithaca also took part in the boycott, with the latter stating: “When we found out about Barclays’ involvement with Download, we knew we could no longer take part. This moment of solidarity is an opportunity for festival organisers to think carefully about who they take money from and to ensure that the younger generation of bands will no longer remain silent.”

The boycott came after more than 100 bands pulled out of the Barclaycard-sponsored Great Escape Festival in Brighton in May.

The actions of the British music scene reflect the wider protests against Barclays by pro-Palestinian activists. This week, members of the activist group Palestine Action vandalised around 20 of the bank’s branches across the UK, smashing windows and smearing them with red paint, among other things. In Edinburgh, stones bearing the names of dead Palestinians were thrown at a bank branch.

The UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called for a general boycott of the bank, saying it is “heavily complicit in Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians”. It claims that Barclays now “holds over £2 billion worth of shares and provides £6.1 billion worth of loans and guarantees to companies that supply Israel with weapons systems”.

It is also one of the goals of “divestment and exclusion” identified by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Barclays responded to the criticism in a statement published online. “We have been asked why we invest in nine defense companies that supply Israel, but this is a misconception about our actions,” the company wrote. “We trade shares in listed companies on the instructions or requests of our clients and this may result in us holding shares. Although we provide financial services to these companies, we do not make investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a ‘shareholder’ or ‘investor’ in that sense in relation to these companies.”

Referring to Israeli defence company Elbit, Barclays stated: “We may hold shares in connection with client-directed transactions, which is why we appear on the share register, but we are not investors.”

The statement continued: “The UK government has stated that supporting high-quality, well-managed arms companies is consistent with ESG (environmental, social and governance) considerations. It is the government’s job to decide on foreign policy and laws that restrict arms supplies to a particular country.”

When the Guardian asked Barclays for comment earlier this week, the company said it had supported the UK music and arts sector with £112 million over the past 20 years.