Glastonbury Festival has a history of controversy surrounding acts billed to perform, often offering up some surprising choices on the line ups for their medley of stages over the years. The festival also has some heavy ties with political activism, playing host to the Left Field – a traveling stage that visits various British festivals over the summer, regularly including Guilfest and Edinburgh Fringe with the objective of promoting left-wing politics to a wider audience, highlighting current issues and allowing debates.

Today there was the unprecedented announcement that this year Labour Party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn will take to the stage at the Left Field Area, and in doing so will make history by becoming the first party leader to have spoken at Glastonbury Festival.

The Left Field Area, which is organised by singer and political activist Billy Bragg, combines music and politics, and will give Corbyn a platform on which to air his views and discuss them on stage. This coincides with an important event in British politics: the EU referendum taking place on 23rd June, clashing with Glastonbury’s dates – 22nd June to 26th June.

Glastonbury Festival’s official website features an open letter from Billy Bragg which reads:

The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader has galvanised a new generation of activists and this year at Left Field and we aim to give them a platform to discuss issues around social justice, the economy, gender and the possibilities for genuine change under a Corbyn government.
With the results of the referendum on our membership of the European Union due to be declared during the festival, we’ll be trying to make sense of what the outcome means for Britain and its people.

[…]And for the first time, Left Field will be hosting a panel of young speakers from the Kids Field who will be coming down to tell us about the things that are important to them.
We’ve got great live music from bands with something to say, comedians who pull no punches and our ever popular Radical Round Up, which draws in singer-songwriters who want to change the world. So come down and spend an hour or two under our big top tent and recharge your activism.

Glastonbury is one of the few major festivals to broadcast a political stance, with its founder Michael Eavis setting out to campaign for equality long ago, intending to “fight for a change and give our poorer people just half a chance to live decent, happy and worthwhile lives”.

This news will undoubtedly add more suspense for this year’s festival, which is shaping up to be bigger than ever, with Muse, Adele and Coldplay set to headline and a long list of performers announced last week – see here for the full line up.