Barclays has suspended its sponsorship of major UK music festivals organised by Live Nation for 2024, including Download, Latitude and Isle of Wight.

The move comes after bands and campaigners protested the bank's financial links to defence companies supplying weapons to Israel.

Several acts, such as Leeds punk band Pest Control and metal group Ithaca, had already withdrawn from this weekend's Download Festival over the Barclays sponsorship. They cited an unwillingness to be associated with a bank accused of complicity in Israeli violence against Palestinians.

The protest group Bands Boycott Barclays hailed the sponsorship suspension as "a victory for the Palestinian-led global BDS movement." They had demanded Barclays "divest from the genocide, or face further boycotts."

Barclays defended its involvement with defence contractors as "an essential part of keeping this country and our allies safe." A spokesperson stated the protesters' real "agenda is to have Barclays debank defence companies."

However, the bank also criticised the "intimidating" tactics used, including vandalism of branches and online harassment of staff. Its chief exec CS Venkatakrishnan had previously condemned such "attacks" and called to "restore reason and discourse" in an oped for The Guardian.

Environmental groups like Greenpeace additionally welcomed the festival move, seeing it as an opportunity to pressure Barclays over its funding of fossil fuel projects. The bank is Europe's largest funder of oil and gas.

The controversy echoes recent protests which saw over 100 acts pull out of Brighton's The Great Escape festival in May due to its Barclaycard sponsorship.

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