Author Andreas Malm has been denied entry to the United Kingdom on the grounds that his “presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good,” according to The Guardian and Al Jazeera. Malm was traveling to speak at a conference alongside a co-founder of Palestine Action, a direct action group that the UK classified as a terrorist organization last year.
Best known for his book How To Blow Up A Pipeline, Malm has been a leading authority on climate change for years. He is also a prominent Marxist thinker and has been outspoken in his solidarity with Palestine and his condemnation of Israel’s genocide. Malm is scheduled to be a speaker at next Wednesday’s launch event for the Historical Materialism Conference organized by Tribune magazine, alongside Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action.
Before he could head to London, though, Malm was notified by the UK’s Home Office that his Electronic Travel Authorisation had been cancelled. Malm responded that he is “deeply dismayed at this sudden ban on travelling to the UK,” where he has visited “for decades” for research, lectures, and conferences.
“I have always considered the UK a centre of the world of ideas,” he said, “where differences in opinions and scientific approaches can be aired freely.” He asked for the decision to be reversed. The event is currently scheduled to go on as planned, with Malm appearing via video.
A number of prominent publications and fellow writers have jumped to his defense, including Tribune itself. “The government seems to think that it by banning its critics from the country it can reduce people’s exposure to their ideas,” the magazine’s editors wrote. “But the government is wrong. Those ideas will continue to circulate. We will make sure of that.”
Tariq Ali of Verso, which has published many of Malm’s books, issued a statement asserting that the publisher “condemns the silencing of critical voices and stands in support of writers and scholars who continue to speak out about important issues and contribute to open intellectual discourse.”
And Sally Rooney, who is barred from selling her books in the UK because of her solidarity with Palestine and Palestine Action, called the UK’s action “not only an outrageous attack on a respected climate expert, but a sad and frightening act of cultural self-harm.”
