The Proclaimers have sharply criticised the Harry Potter cast members who distanced themselves from JK Rowling following the author’s outspoken comments on transgender issues and women’s rights.
In a forthright new interview, the Scottish duo, long associated with liberal politics, took aim at Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, describing them as “f***ing bairns” who, they said, owed much of their success to Rowling’s work.
Their remarks emerged on the same day that Craig and Charlie Reid, the 64-year-old Edinburgh-born twins behind the hit anthem “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” said the political left was “losing their mind” after the pair withdrew their support for the SNP.
The brothers also challenged activists campaigning for expanded transgender rights, claiming that some within the movement were “truth-phobic.”
Rowling, the creator of the Harry Potter series, has been at the centre of an ongoing public backlash in recent years over her views on women’s rights and the protection of single-sex spaces.
She argues biological sex is foundational to women’s safety, though a host of stars have chosen to distance themselves from such a view.
Craig, from Edinburgh, told The Telegraph: ‘There’s women, actual women, who are threatened with violence and de-platformed because they have the territory to say that a woman is an adult human female.’
His brother Charlie later added: ‘Those f***ing bairns who Rowling made massive fortunes for… It was not necessary that each of them stood up and agreed with her, but you would have though someone would stand up and say, “We live in a free country. Thank goodness we have freedrom of speech!”
‘She is exercising her point of view. I do not necessarily support it, but I support her right to say something. I don’t remember any of them saying that.’
Twins Craig and Charlie Reid, 64, who are behind hits including I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) and Sunshine on Leith, have hit out at Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson after the trio turned against JK Rowling
Rowling has faced criticism over her campaign to protect what she describes as women’s rights
The author previously said she would never forgive Watson, Grint or Radcliffe for criticising her views
Rowling previously vowed ‘never to forgive’ Harry Potter movie stars Radcliffe, Watson and Grint for criticising her views, accusing the trio of ‘cosying up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights’.
Rowling later doubled down on her criticism of Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the films, arguing her views on trans rights were due to her lack of ‘real life’ experience last September.
Just weeks earlier, the actress had blamed a driving ban on being a child movie star, saying it had left her ‘unable to do some pretty basic life things’.
Rowling raged: ‘I wasn’t a multimillionaire at 14. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous.
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It came after Watson said during an appearance on On Purpose with Jay Shetty that her support for trans rights did not mean she had turned against the woman who shaped her life.
She added: ‘I really don’t believe that by having had that experience and holding the love and support and views that I have, mean that I can’t and don’t treasure Jo and the person that I, that I had personal experiences with.’
Rowling insisted she did not expect Watson, Radcliffe or Grint to agree with her on everything and they ‘have every right to embrace gender identity ideology’.
The Proclaimers, who shot to fame in the late 1980s, were speaking to the press ahead of the release of their 13th studio album You May Offend tomorrow.
The project is expected to reflect the twins’ new world view, with certain tracks arguing for the political right to voice controversial views such as the gender debate.
Charlie and Craig had been lifelong liberals but revealed this week that they no longer support the SNP over Nicola Sturgeon’s policies on self-ID.
They say that in this year’s Holyrood elections, they could not vote for the party, accusing its leadership of doing ‘real damage to the cause’.
Craig blamed Sturgeon’s 2022 Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill that would have made it more straightforward for people to legally change their gender.
The legislation, supported by Scottish Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens, was ultimately blocked by the Conservative government.
He claimed it was Sturgeon’s support for gender self-ID that he said led to ‘violent men, including convicted rapists, being sent to women’s prisons’.
The Proclaimers, who had been lifelong liberals, say they no longer support the SNP over Nicola Sturgeon’s policies on self-ID
He said the policy was ‘unforgivable’ and added that gender critical women are ‘shouted down’ by people who ‘are male and who think that because they put on a dress, and they put on make-up, that that makes them female’.
Meanwhile Charlie pointed to figures with highly controversial views on the transgender community such as Graham Linehan and JK Rowling and claimed those who campaign for more rights for the trans population are ‘truth-phobic’.
Yet he also denied being transphobic, continuing: ‘I’m not against a man identifying as a woman, dressing as a woman… All I’m against is saying that he actually is a woman when he’s not a woman.’
Elsewhere, their views were more in line with their liberal identities. The pair railed against the ‘moron’ Donald Trump, the ‘ignoring of international law’ and even said that children are ‘being groomed’ into joining the military by organisations such as army cadets.