Katie Amess says Kneecap’s response in ‘kill your MP’ row was ‘gaslighting’

The daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess has accused Kneecap of “gaslighting” in the rap group’s apology and said it would be “very dangerous” for the group to perform at Glastonbury.

Video has emerged from a November 2023 gig appearing to show one member of the group saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.”

In an interview with the PA news agency, Katie Amess said it is right that the Metropolitan Police are assessing the footage, adding that her father “would still be here” if officers had “followed through and looked into threats” against him.

Ms Amess said she was “absolutely heartbroken” after seeing the clip because it “brought back so much pain and upset”, and called for the group to “take full accountability” before being allowed to perform on stage.

Kneecap denied inciting violence, calling the clip “deliberately taken out of context”, but did say: “To the Amess and Cox families, we send our heartfelt apologies.”

Tory Sir David was stabbed to death in 2021, and Labour MP Jo Cox died after being stabbed and shot in 2016.

Ms Amess told PA that the Kneecap statement suggested the trio had been “badly advised” because it was “deflection and excuses and gaslighting”.

She said: “It was absurd, that’s not an apology. It’s deflection, it is not taking accountability, it’s making excuses.

“They don’t understand what they’re talking about, they obviously aren’t educated enough in what they’re speaking about to think that they can use those excuses and everybody will be like, ‘oh, never mind, let’s move on to something else’.”

Ms Amess called on the group to apologise directly to those they had offended.

The Metropolitan Police are assessing the footage, along with a video clip from another concert in November 2024 in which a member of the band appeared to shout “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” – groups which are banned as terrorist organisations in the UK.

Ms Amess said Scotland Yard should “absolutely” investigate the matter, adding: “If the police had followed through and looked into threats against my dad the night before the murder, my dad would still be here.

“So we can’t wait until after the act and then say, ‘oh dear, lessons will be learned’. No, lessons are never learned.

“When these things happen, when there’s a warning, when there’s an incitement to do this, we have to get ahead of these things in order to prevent loss of innocent lives. And if we’d have done that with my dad, he would still be here.”

Ms Amess also said that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch may be correct in saying that the group should be banned “full stop”.

She said: “I think we need to let the police do an investigation.

“I think that maybe Kemi is right. I don’t know all the ins and outs of all the history of other stuff that they have said, so I don’t want to speak out of line.

“But the police definitely need to investigate and there needs to be criminal action against them.

“And then if we find that, yeah, they really are spouting this kind of rhetoric and they don’t understand the consequences, and this has happened consistently and they’re not taking accountability, then perhaps, yes, but we should investigate first.”

Ministers are putting pressure on the organisers of the Glastonbury Festival over the band’s inclusion in the line-up.

Ms Amess said: “For them to get up on stage in front of millions of people, who knows what they’re going to say, it could be very, very dangerous.”

Sir David, 69, was stabbed to death by Ali Harbi Ali at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on October 15 2021.

The MP, a father of five, had been holding a surgery in his Southend West constituency when he was attacked by Ali, who was sentenced to a whole-life prison term for the murder in 2022.

A series of threatening phone calls were made to the adult son of the veteran MP the evening before the murder, which police said were “not linked in any way” to the attack.

Ms Amess has called for a full inquest into his death, saying there are still unanswered questions about why the police did not protect his constituency surgery after the threats.