Andreas Malm, the climate academic and author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, has been blocked from entering the UK before he was due to speak alongside a co-founder of the banned group Palestine Action.
Malm was told by immigration officials his presence in the UK “may not be considered to be conducive to the public good”. He said the decision was “scandalous” and urged the government to reconsider.
Malm, an associate professor of human ecology at Lund University in Sweden, was due to headline a conference organised by Tribune magazine next week on “Washington’s global reign of terror and Britain’s role in reinforcing it”.
He was due to speak alongside Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action. They were expected to discuss the impact of the ban, including its effect on the author Sally Rooney, who has withdrawn her books from sale in the UK over her support for the group.
Rooney said the decision to ban Malm from the UK was a “sad and frightening act of cultural self-harm”.
The Tribune event was timed to coincide with the start of a supreme court challenge to the ban next Wednesday. While in London, Malm was also due to be interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s Radical With Gabriel Gatehouse programme.
Malm said: “I am deeply dismayed at this sudden ban on travelling to the UK. I have been going to the UK for decades – this is where I did my archival research for my PhD dissertation and lectured at dozens of universities and participated in even more conferences.”
Malm urged the government to think again. He said: “One was under the impression that the Burnham government had slightly more respect for the basic notions of freedom of expression and other democratic rights. I appeal for this decision to be overturned.”
The Home Office said it did not discuss individual cases.
Rooney said: “Andreas Malm is among the most brilliant and influential intellectuals working in Europe today. For the UK government to deny him entry to Britain is not only an outrageous attack on a respected climate expert, but a sad and frightening act of cultural self-harm.”
Earlier this year, the US leftwing commentators Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker were also barred from the UK on the same grounds that their presence in the UK “may not be conducive to the public good”.
Tribune’s editor, Oliver Eagleton, said: “Ironically, Andreas was coming to London to speak at our event about the unprecedented attacks on free speech unleashed by the proscription of Palestine Action, including the effective ban on Sally Rooney’s books, but he has now been banned himself.
“He is being censored for speaking out about censorship, in truly Orwellian fashion. It is shameful that Andy Burnham’s government is continuing the authoritarian overreach we saw under Keir Starmer, and in this dystopian new reality it is now commonplace in Britain for authors and academics to be treated as terrorists because they support Palestinians facing genocide and the rights of people protesting that genocide.”
Malm’s books have won international awards and inspired many to take action for environmental justice and Palestinian rights. How to Blow Up a Pipeline inspired a film of the same name. He has travelled regularly to Britain to lecture at universities including Oxford, King’s College London and Cambridge.
