Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis has revealed why Jeremy Corbyn was asked to appear at the festival this weekend, saying that it ‘was the right time’. Watch our video interview with Eavis above.
The Labour leader received what many have called a ‘rockstar welcome‘ when he arrived at Worthy Farm on Saturday, before making a number of appearances across the site – including a powerful speech on the Pyramid Stage to one of the biggest crowds that Glastonbury has ever seen.
“All of the lanes through all of the markets started getting blocked,” Emily Eavis told NME about the size of the audience. “I don’t think you could get another person through that field. We also had The Other Stage packed before Kaiser Chiefs came on, which is why we put another feed on that stage because we were concerned about the amount of people trying to get to the Pyramid.
“That was a huge moment, wasn’t it? It was great.”
She continued: “It’s felt like such a long time since you would put a political leader in that place, but it was the right time. There are things we’ve been campaigning about here for such a long time. And the history that the festival has with politics and CND. It really felt like the right time. It was quite an overwhelming moment, actually. A lot of people were very moved by it. It was something totally special and a complete one-off.”
Her father Michael Eavis also spoke out for Corbyn and how he inspired such a strong youth vote.
“We were so thrilled with the result that he had in the election,” Michael told the Glastonbury Free Press. “Millions of young people – Glastonbury people – voted for him. I think he has a fundamental sense of justice, of real political change, of being anti-war and anti-nuclear. That’s what we’ve spent our lives campaigning for, too. Since Emily was two, we’ve been going to London to march for all those things that Jeremy represents.”