Swedish author and climate activist Andreas Malm has been barred from entering Britain ahead of a pro-Palestine event in London next week. Immigration officials told him his presence might not serve the public good, but supplied no further explanation or evidence for the decision.
Malm, an associate professor of human ecology at Lund University, was scheduled to discuss Washington’s global influence and Britain’s support for it. The event was also to feature Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, the group proscribed by the British government.
Calling the decision “scandalous”, Malm urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government to reverse it. He said he had travelled to Britain for decades, conducting archival research for his doctoral dissertation, delivering lectures at dozens of universities and attending numerous conferences. He also expressed disappointment with the government’s approach to freedom of expression and democratic rights.
Verso Books, the British publisher of several of Malm’s works, condemned his exclusion. The company said that in more than 55 years of publishing, no British government had previously withdrawn one of its authors’ right to enter the country. It characterised the restriction as an attempt to suppress dissent.
The event’s organiser, the left-wing publication Tribune, had intended the discussion to address free speech, the proscription of Palestine Action and what it described as the effective ban on Sally Rooney’s books because of her support for the group. Tribune editor Oliver Eagleton criticised the exclusion of someone invited to speak about censorship, saying it continued the authoritarian approach seen under former prime minister Keir Starmer.
Burnham has tried to distinguish his position from that of Starmer, who resigned in July. That month, Burnham apologised for Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza, acknowledging that the party had been wrong and that its approach had caused considerable hurt.
Starmer had said in 2023 that Israel had the right to cut power, food and water supplies to Palestinians. His government resisted calls for a ceasefire for almost five months and continued arms sales to Israel as evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity accumulated.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband described Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank as ethnic cleansing in September. Asked in October about the previous government’s Gaza policy, he acknowledged that it had been too cautious and reluctant to criticise Israeli conduct. Malm’s exclusion nevertheless follows entry bans imposed under Starmer on other pro-Palestine speakers, including Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur earlier this year.
