I’ve been to a lot of protests over the years — across different sides of the political spectrum. I’ve also been to far more music festivals and gigs than I can count, covering every genre you can imagine. I’ve stood in crowds watching some of the most deliberately provocative bands around — death metal, doomcore, black metal, grindcore — whose entire thing is to shock the audience. And yet, not once, not once, have I ever been asked to chant “death to” anyone. Not at a protest, not at a gig, not even as some twisted bit of irony. If it had happened, I’d have walked away. I’d have been genuinely freaked out. Because there’s something deeply sinister about that. There’s a line between protest and hate — and when people start chanting for death, that line isn’t just crossed, it’s obliterated. That’s why what happened at Glastonbury this year has left me chilled. British people, on British soil, waving foreign flags while chanting “death to…” — it doesn’t matter who the target is, it’s unacceptable. How did we get to this point? How did that become normal at a supposedly progressive, peace-loving music festival? And what makes it even more grotesque is that many of the people doing this are the same ones who spend the rest of the year lecturing everyone else to “be kind.” They’re the ones banging on about inclusivity, about tolerance — and yet the moment a woman stands up to defend her sex-based rights, they’re the first to call her a bigot, a fascist, a TERF. The hypocrisy is staggering. It’s not inclusive to chant for the death of others. It’s not kind to silence and vilify women for speaking about their own lives. It’s not progressive to foster a climate where hate is rebranded as virtue, and rage is mistaken for justice. I don’t know where we go from here. But I do know this: this kind of extremism needs challenging. It needs calling out. Because if you find yourself in a crowd chanting for death, and you’re still convinced you’re on the side of good — then it’s time to take a long, hard look in the mirror.