Police probe grime star’s antisemitic Twitter posts
POLICE are investigating grime artist Wiley after he posted a tirade of antisemitic comments on social media.
The musician – real name Richard Cowie – was yesterday dropped by his management company and banned from Twitter for a week after he described Jewish people as ‘cowards’ and ‘snakes’.
From tomorrow, well- known names within the Jewish community, including Rachel Riley and Arlene Phillips, have organised a 48- hour walkout from Twitter to protest against its failure to act promptly against antisemitic posts.
Cowie – a staunch supporter of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – posted a series of tweets which have been labelled racist, including a video in which he said ‘ crawl out from under your little rocks and defend your Jewish privilege’.
Yesterday, a spokesman for the Met Police confirmed: ‘We have received a number of reports relating to alleged antisemitic tweets posted on social media. The Met takes all reports of antisemitism extremely seriously. The relevant material is being assessed.’
It came just hours after Wiley’s manager John Woolf announced his firm A- List Management was no longer representing the 41-year-old rapper. Woolf, who is Jewish, tweeted yesterday: ‘ Following Wiley’s antisemitic tweets today we have cut all ties with him. There is no place in society for antisemitism.’
After posting the offensive messages last Friday, Wiley – who is described as the ‘Godfather of Grime’ and received an MBE for services to music in 2018 – was banned for a few hours from the social networking site. But yesterday morning, he tweeted he was ‘back in action’ to his 500,000 followers, only to be subsequently barred from the social-media platform for seven days.
Yesterday, grime producer DJ Spoony said the comments were ‘at best inflammatory and at worst criminal in some aspects’.