BBC staff told Bobby Vylan his 'death to the IDF' performance was FANTASTIC, rapper claims

In his first interview since Glastonbury, Mr Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, was asked if he stands by the chant and if he would do it again.

"Oh yeah. Like what if I was to go on Glastonbury again tomorrow, yes I would do it again. I'm not regretful of it. I'd do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays," he told The Louis Theroux Podcast.

He continued: "I'm not regretful of it at all, like the subsequent backlash that I’ve faced. It's minimal.

"It's minimal compared to what people in Palestine are going through. If that can be my contribution and if I can have my Palestinian friends and people that I meet from Palestine, that have had to flee, that have lost members in double digits of their family and they can say, yo, your chant, I love it. Or it gave me a breath of fresh air or whatever.

"And I don't want to overstate the importance of the chant. That's not what I’m trying to do, but if I have their support, they’re the people that I’m doing it for, they’re the people that I’m being vocal for, then what is there to regret.

"Oh, because I’ve upset some right-wing politician or some right-wing media?"

Mr Theroux noted that the conversation was taken a day before the Manchester synagogue attack and the ceasefire in Gaza coming into effect.

The musician said he could not believe the backlash to his chant, saying members of BBC staff told him the set was "fantastic".

Sir Keir Starmer previously described his chants as "appalling hate speech".

The corporation's executive complaints unit found the BBC's broadcast of the performance breached editorial standards in relation to harm and offence.

Mr Vylan said: "I had no expectations. I honestly hadn't heard it (the reaction). I hadn't seen it. Because obviously, there was a lot happening at the time. Do you know what I mean?

"It wasn't like we came off stage, and everybody was like (gasps). It's just normal. We come off stage. It’s normal. Nobody thought anything. Nobody. Even staff at the BBC were like, 'That was fantastic. We loved that.'"

Mr Vylan also hit back at Blur's Damon Albarn, who described his chants as "one of the most spectacular misfires I've seen in my life, especially when he started goose-stepping in tennis gear".

He said: "It was disappointing. Because it lacked self-awareness, I think, his response.

"I just want to say that categorising it as a 'spectacular misfire' implies that somehow the politics of the band or our stance on Palestinian liberation is not thought out.

"And as a more senior, experienced, veteran artist - he's been in this industry for a long time - I think that there were other ways that he could have handled that question being fielded to him.

"I take great issue with the phrase 'goose-stepping' being used because it's only used around Nazi Germany. That’s it. And for him to use that language, I think, is disgusting. I think his response was disgusting."

When questioned about what he meant by the chant "Death to the IDF", Mr Vylan said: "My whole issue with this thing is that the chant is so unimportant. It's so unimportant, and the response to it was so disproportionate.

"What is important is the conditions that exist to allow that chant to even take place on that stage. And I mean, the conditions that exist in Palestine. Where the Palestinian people are being killed at an alarming rate.

"Who cares about the chant? It's like, what is it that is allowing for that chant to even exist? That's what the focus should have always been on it."

Mr Vylan insisted that he does not think he has "created an unsafe atmosphere for the Jewish community" and rejected any claims that the set contributed to a spike in antisemitic incidents reported a couple of days later.