Danielle Binks

The Home Office has banned Swedish author Andreas Malm from entering the UK, saying his presence in the country “is not considered to be conducive to the public good”. Malm – a climate academic and the author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline – was due to speak alongside a co-founder of Palestine Action at an event run by Tribune magazine about the impact of the ban on the group on free speech. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on Friday morning that he could not see any other explanation for the Home Office’s decision than his scheduled appearance on the panel. Malm said in a separate statement: “That I am prevented from going to the UK to sit on a public panel, speak to the BBC, attend an academic conference, I think it is nothing short of scandalous.” He added: “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.” Malm is an outspoken critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza who has been interviewed by Novara Media several times. In 2024, he told Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar that he had been finding it “incredibly difficult to emotionally engage with the climate question since… the genocide started”. Irish author Sally Rooney, whose books can no longer be sold in the UK due to the Palestine Action ban, described Malm as one of “the most brilliant and influential intellectuals working in Europe today”. Barring him from the UK is “a sad and frightening act of cultural self-harm”, she said. Tribune’s editor, Oliver Eagleton, said it was “deeply disturbing” that Malm was “seemingly being censored for speaking out about censorship”, adding that it is “now commonplace for authors and academics to be treated as terrorists because they support Palestinians facing genocide”. Malm’s case recalls that of leftwing US commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur, who were blocked from entering the UK by Keir Starmer’s Labour government in June, also on the grounds that their presence would “not be conducive to the public good”. Palestine Action became the first direct action group in British history to be proscribed as a terror organisation last summer. The Tribune event at which Malm was due to speak was timed to coincide with the start of a supreme court challenge to the ban on Wednesday.