{"id":6621,"date":"2026-09-24T01:58:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T23:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6621"},"modified":"2026-09-24T01:58:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T23:58:01","slug":"sheeran-safe-space-billionaires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2026-09-24\/sheeran-safe-space-billionaires\/","title":{"rendered":"Ed Sheeran does provide a \u2018safe space\u2019 \u2013 for the billionaires who own him"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Listen to an audio version of this article here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sheeran\u2019s \u2018political neutrality\u2019 is a cover story \u2013 hiding an implicit deal. He\u2019s allowed to grow rich, on condition he denies a platform to anyone trying to hold the billionaire class to account<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Lots of journalists do disinformation. After all, it\u2019s often their job: to get you looking in the wrong place or viewing events through the wrong lens.<\/p>\n

A good illustration is Tom Slater, editor of Spiked magazine. Tom isn\u2019t dumb. But in his latest article, titled \u201cThe monstering of Ed Sheeran proves \u2018Free Palestine\u2019 has become a cult\u201d, he does a very good job of pretending to be. Why? Because that\u2019s the best way for him to keep his readership dumb.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s far from alone. Right now, there\u2019s a whole industry of media professionals responding<\/a> to the Sheeran furore by pointing in the very opposite direction<\/a> to the one the public ought to be looking in.<\/p>\n

Like Slater, these journalists and pundits understand that Sheeran isn\u2019t in trouble because of some supposedly out-of-control \u201cFree Palestine\u201d cult. Like Slater, they know that the issue was never about Sheeran\u2019s failure to speak out about Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Had it been, this so-called cult \u2013 or what Slater preposterously calls the \u201ckeffiyeh classes\u201d \u2013 would be \u201cmonstering\u201d all of the other prominent artists who have been keeping their heads down and refusing to speak up about the genocide.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

No, people are angry with Sheeran for a quite different \u2013 and very obvious \u2013 reason.<\/p>\n

He invited fellow musician and long-standing friend Macklemore to open his tour, knowing that Macklemore would perform a song about the Gaza genocide called Hind\u2019s Hall.<\/p>\n

Sheeran then immediately reversed his tiny, proxy act of courage by capitulating to a threat from Robert Kraft, a billionaire stadium owner who is also a pal of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and generous donor to the genocidal Israeli military.<\/p>\n

After conspiring with other billionaire stadium owners, Kraft gave Sheeran an ultimatum: drop Macklemore or we pull the plug on your tour.<\/p>\n

The pushback seems to have caught Sheeran by surprise. His support acts and backing band withdrew from the tour. That\u2019s not, as Slater and the rest of the establishment media would have you believe, because they suddenly fell under the spell of some powerful cult.<\/p>\n

The backlash is far more easily explained:<\/p>\n

Because Sheeran has proved himself a spineless and disloyal friend.<\/p>\n

Because he has taken a highly political stance, and an ugly one at that, in supporting the genocide apologists who dominate the billionaire class and expect obedience from their political and media flunkeys.<\/p>\n

Because he has given his implicit consent for a billionaire with a nefarious political agenda to dictate what can be said in our cultural spaces.<\/p>\n

Because through his cowardly capitulation, Sheeran has given his permission for the billionaire class to continue controlling those cultural spaces.<\/p>\n

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Because the all-too-predictable consequence will be that even fewer artists \u2013 certainly any who wish to be \u201ccommercial\u201d \u2013 will dare to break from the cultural production model preferred by Kraft and the other billionaires of Sheeran-style \u201csoppy love songs\u201d that pose no threat to their power.<\/p>\n

People are angry with Sheeran because he has just made it even harder to stand up to the power of the oligarchs. If a singer like Sheeran worth untold millions is too fearful, what chance the rest of us?<\/p>\n

If those who dare to speak up are stabbed in the back even by their allies \u2013 by artists like Sheeran who have real leverage within the West\u2019s cultural spaces \u2013 what hope is there that we can ever seize back the public realm, including the political sphere, that\u2019s dominated not by some imaginary \u201ckeffiyeh class\u201d but by the all-too-real super-rich.<\/p>\n

The current furore engulfing Sheeran wasn’t provoked by his silence on Gaza. But now that the furore has made it all too clear that billionaires such as Kraft dictate what artists are allowed to say in venues, Sheeran\u2019s silence on Gaza looks a lot more malign than it did before.<\/p>\n

His supposedly \u201capolitical\u201d stance looks less like it is providing a \u201csafe space\u201d for his audience and more like it is providing a safe space for billionaires like Kraft that Sheeran has aligned himself with.<\/p>\n

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Ed Sheeran just learnt: Being pimped by the billionaires for genocide is a bad look.<\/p>\n

Read my latest article here: https:\/\/t.co\/kROl5sIUlb<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/Df8teJfXkM<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) September 17, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n