Jeremy Corbyn and Belfast rap group Kneecap have embarked on an “aid mission” to Cuba, condemning the US fuel embargo on the decaying communist state.
The former Labour leader and the Irish-language trio joined other sympathisers in a flotilla to Havana, dubbed Our America Convoy.
“It is simply wrong what is happening in any moral sense,” the MP for Islington North declared at a press conference alongside the musicians in the Cuban capital.
Mr Corbyn, who held talks with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, challenged European nations to resist pressure from Washington.
He said: “If France, Germany and Britain instructed an oil tanker to go to Cuba to deliver oil, would the US really bomb that oil tank?
“Trump would back down.”
Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs as Mo Chara, despaired that the communist Caribbean state was being “strangled” by American restrictions.
“As Irish people, it’s just not in our nature to watch these things happen internationally or domestically and stay silent,” he said alongside bandmates Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh, the latter wearing his signature Irish tricolour balaclava.
Jeremy Corbyn joined rap group Kneecap on an ‘aid mission’ to Cuba
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The rapper drew parallels between Cuba’s current situation and Ireland’s historical experience.
“It’s important that people who have a platform like us, who reach maybe a certain number of audiences… that we use that platform for what’s right and what’s good,” he said.
Kneecap has courted controversy previously. Mr Ó hAnnaidh faced charges under British anti-terrorism legislation for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag during a 2024 concert, though a judge subsequently dismissed the case.
Mr Corbyn and the group joined approximately 650 delegates from 33 nations and 120 organisations, delivering around 20 tonnes of humanitarian supplies to Cuba.
The Islington North MP called on the UK to support Havana amid US sanctions
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Participants flew in from Italy, France, Spain, the United States and various Latin American countries, while a flotilla of three vessels carrying additional aid departed from Mexico.
The cargo included solar panels, food supplies and cancer treatment medications intended to alleviate shortages caused by the American energy restrictions.
However, the delegation’s presence has drawn fierce criticism from Cuban exiles who accuse participants of enjoying comfortable conditions while ordinary citizens endure severe hardship.
Their arrival coincided with a complete collapse of the national electricity grid on Saturday evening at 6.30pm local time, with Cuba’s energy ministry confirming a “total disconnection” had occurred.
Belfast rapper group Kneecap drew parallels between Cuba’s current situation and Ireland’s historical experience
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Some delegates reportedly stayed at the five-star Gran Hotel Bristol Meliá Collection, where rooms cost between $130 and $520 per night, and travelled in air-conditioned buses to meet President Díaz-Canel.
“While nearly the entire country is suffering from power outages lasting over 20 hours, the left is welcomed with air conditioning and wasteful electricity consumption,” said Mayra Dominguez, a Cuban living in exile in the United States.
“This is a gigantic mockery of the entire Cuban people. The left visits Cuba as if it were a party at a zoo, and they go to admire the misery from a luxury hotel,” she told the New York Post.
Cuba’s power infrastructure has been pushed to breaking point since the US captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in early January, cutting off critical oil shipments that had sustained the island.
Rolling blackouts have become commonplace in Cuba
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The communist nation of 11 million people has experienced repeated grid failures, with the entire system collapsing on Monday, before Saturday’s outage.
Black-market petrol prices have soared, hospitals have postponed operations, and the country’s leading university has scaled back classes.
Amid the crisis, furious locals set fire to a Communist Party building in the town of Morón last week in a rare act of public dissent.
Havana has been the target of US sanctions since the 1959 revolution, which led to a nuclear standoff between Washington and the Soviet Union in 1962 after the latter stationed nuclear missiles on the island. President Trump has said he expects to have “the honour of taking Cuba”.