MP Zarah Sultana makes surprise main stage appearance at FORWARDS festival

British politician Zarah Sultana made an unexpected appearance on the main stage of Bristol’s FORWARDS Festival on Sunday, 24th August, delivering a rousing political speech to the assembled crowd. The address was an unscheduled highlight on the final day of the festival, now in its fourth year.

Sultana took to the stage to introduce co-headliner Nia Archives, who performed as part of a day featuring an all-female lineup of headliners including Jorja Smith, The Last Dinner Party, and Olivia Dean.

Earlier in the day, Sultana had participated in a panel discussion at the festival’s ‘The Information’ stage titled ‘Pissed Off with Politics’, alongside Carol Vorderman, Gary Stevenson, and Coco Khan. During her main stage speech, Sultana told the audience, “Hope is a radical act. It’s saying: yes, the world is unfair, but it doesn’t have to stay that way”.

Full transcript:

“Hi, my name is Zarah, MP, working with others across the movement to build a new left grassroots political party.

It’s easy to feel like politics is something that happens somewhere else. Behind closed doors, in places most of us never get to see. And when it does break into our lives, it often feels like it brings only bad news: student debt, bills rising, struggling public services, communities at breaking point and forever wars.

A lot of people are fed up. I am too. Fed up with being told that this is just how things are. Fed up with being asked to settle for less. Fed up with the idea that the best we can do is manage decline, implement austerity, blame migrants, Muslims and trans people, enable genocide in Gaza and have fascism growling at the door.

But here’s the truth:

Politics is not only what happens in Parliament or on the news. Politics is us. It’s here. It’s all of you .

It’s people deciding they won’t accept the world as it is. It’s people daring to imagine the world as it should be.

Every great change we’ve ever seen, from rights at work, to votes for women, to the NHS, didn’t come from the top down. It came because ordinary people stood up and said: we aren’t going to take this anymore.

And when people come together with that conviction, something powerful happens:

Hope. Not the shallow kind that tells us to just wait and see, but the deep kind that comes when we believe we can build something new, and we start doing it.

Hope is a radical act. It’s saying: yes, the world is unfair, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. It’s saying, we’re not an “island of strangers”: we’re an island that’s suffering, that needs hope, that needs change and we will fight for something better.

So when people tell you that things can’t change, remember this: they always say that. Until the moment they do.

And at a festival like this where people gather not just to escape the world, but to imagine new ones… we get a glimpse of what’s possible. People looking out for each other. People building community. People daring to dream.

Let’s take that collective, and hope beyond these fields… and carry it into our streets, our schools, our workplaces, our homes. Because politics doesn’t belong to the billionaires. It belongs to us, the people.

And we’re not begging for crumbs off the table.

We’re coming for the lot. So join us. The time is now.”

British politician Zarah Sultana delivered a rousing speech on the main stage of FORWARDS Festival in Bristol on Sunday, 24th August 2025.

Sultana took to the stage to introduce Nia Archives before her performance, who co-headlined the day alongside all-female headliners, Jorja Smith, The Last Dinner Party, and Olivia Dean.

Sultana’s appearance was an unexpected highlight on the festival’s final day. Now in its fourth year, FORWARDS has established itself as a future-facing music festival, committed to driving positive change through embedding social initiatives into its festival structure and providing a platform for  urgent-discussions, alongside a standout music line-up. 

Earlier that day, Sultana joined Carol Vorderman, Gary Stevenson, and Coco Khan at FORWARDS for a panel discussion titled ‘Pissed Off with Politics’. The talk offered a sharp look at the future of democracy and was part of the festival’s talks programme at The Information stage, which focuses on politics, people, and the push for change.

Image credits:
Khali Ackford
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