Yesterday, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), organisers of Eurovision, decided that, despite opposition, Israel is in for the 2026 song contest in Vienna.
Inside minutes Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia said that, because of this, they were boycotting the competition.
As an enormous fan, I’m feeling completely lost. I do know that sounds dramatic, but Eurovision isn’t just telly to me.
Every week later, Iceland joined them – completing what fans at the moment are calling ‘The Real Big Five’, a jibe at the standard ‘Big Five’ of the UK, Spain, France, Italy and Germany, who financially contribute most to the competition.
These five withdrawals make it the most important boycott in Eurovision’s 70-year history.
Meanwhile, 17 artists within the running to represent Portugal have said they are going to refuse to perform in the event that they are chosen – though their broadcaster has not withdrawn.
I subscribe to its founding values – peace through culture and European unity – and I take my annual watch parties absurdly seriously.
I theme food, spend weeks designing red, white and blue themes, making bunting, blowing budgets on balloons, confetti cannons, and custom LED wristbands.
But for the primary time, I don’t know what to do.
For nearly seventy years, Eurovision has been certainly one of the world’s most successful peace projects, stitching a war‑torn continent back together through music and shared values – built on consistency as much as confetti and its kitsch style.
That’s what makes this moment so heartbreaking. One country’s inclusion now risks ripping that fabric apart at precisely the moment we’d like it most – with Europe arguably facing its gravest threat for the reason that Second World War.
There’s no escaping that participation confers legitimacy. You possibly can’t invite a rustic onto Europe’s biggest soft‑power stage after which insist the stage has nothing to do with soft power.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the road that had been crossed was clear, and everybody could see it. Russia was immediately banned, and rightly so.
Yesterday, the road was blurry, smudged and malleable – not simply because Israel stays in, but because Eurovision’s organisers wouldn’t even test its members with a vote.
That isn’t neutrality, nor the consistency it was founded upon.
Spain’s RTVE broadcaster slammed the choice as incompatible with its values; its chair warned that ‘Eurovision is a contest, but human rights usually are not.’
The Dutch partner Avrotros said Israel’s participation shouldn’t be ‘compatible with the responsibility we bear as a public broadcaster’ while Ireland’s RTÉ called participation ‘unconscionable’.
RÚV said it needed to withdraw ‘given the general public debate in [Iceland]’ and that ‘neither joy nor peace will prevail with [its] participation’.
These usually are not fringe players sulking on the sidelines – they’re mainstream public broadcasters making costly, public decisions, and together, they’ve plunged the competition into its biggest-ever crisis.
These broadcasters have made it clear that they won’t be neutral, nor will they turn their backs.
At the identical time, other heavyweights back the EBU. The BBC – whom I even have defended my whole life through thick and thin – supports the choice to maintain the competition ‘inclusive’, while former BBC boss Tim Davie claimed in October that Eurovision was ‘never about politics’.
But that is the worst of all worlds.
Eurovision is inherently political. Anyone who argues otherwise is just fallacious and naive. The show’s founding purpose, its central principle, its core aim, was to unite Europe after bloodshed – a noble cause, but undeniably a political one.
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Meanwhile, Germany, hosts Austria and others are supporting the EBU’s decision. And that split is the story. Eurovision’s supposed consensus is now in tatters – unity within the slogan, fracturing in practice.
So, I’m stuck between head and heart. In my heart, I feel I should boycott it. I hate the concept of what needs to be a celebration leaving us all so conflicted and divided.
But my head keeps on the lookout for a path back – that broadcasters can discover a consistent standard, for a compromise that doesn’t rubber-stamp what United Nations experts consider a genocide, and holds Israel accountable, as they did Russia.
I’m still holding on to the tiniest hope that something shifts before May and saves the competition – and, frankly, me.
Because because it stands, if you happen to can exclude one country over one invasion of a neighbour, then shrug at one other, you usually are not staying out of politics – you’re practising inconsistency, and inconsistency is political.
The EBU have chosen their stance, but I don’t pretend this is straightforward.
There are artists who will spend their savings chasing a national final slot, crews whose livelihoods rely upon a fortnight every May, and fans – especially queer fans and diaspora communities – who count on tonight to feel seen and protected.
But I also take into consideration civilians under bombardment who will hear Europe say, with a smile, that that is all just harmless fun.
If only that was true.
My Eurovision parties have at all times been about joy – bringing together people from across the UK, Ireland, Europe and even America – but they’ve never been about denial.
And the BBC particularly definitely appears to be in denial. I don’t know the way it may possibly defend supporting this final result, despite polls showing 82% of Britons think Israel shouldn’t be allowed to compete next yr, with 69% saying we must always withdraw in the event that they do.
There may be at the very least some hope in those figures. It suggests Britain is the country I’ve at all times believed it to be. Open, tolerant and with an immovable, stiff moral core, even when that’s not reflected in our state broadcaster.
Possibly – just possibly – there remains to be a route through. I even have a few ideas (just in case anyone on the BBC is reading!).
To their credit, the corporation has, now and again, added temporary explanatory segments around major broadcasts to acknowledge controversies – because it did across the 2022 World Cup coverage in Qatar.
The BBC could provide an on-air explanatory statement providing the context and debate over Israel’s participation – so viewers are, in theory, higher informed.
Or when Eurovision shows the standard short ‘postcard’ film before each act, showcasing that artist’s country, culture and tourism, the EBU could air an extra, neutral postcard featuring a Palestinian voice, during a randomised stage of the show.
Perhaps with changes like these, Europe could get its contest back.
Until then, I’m holding my breath and trying to recollect why this crazy, beautiful show mattered in the primary place.
Because we are able to’t afford to lose it.
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