Academic says he has been barred from UK over event with Palestine Action founder

Academic says he has been barred from UK over event with Palestine Action founder

Andreas Malm said he had been informed by the Home Office that he would not be permitted to enter the UK

A Swedish climate academic says he has been blocked from entering the UK because he was due to appear on a panel with a co-founder of Palestine Action.

Andreas Malm told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had received a letter from the Home Office saying his presence was "not conducive to the public good", without any further explanation.

He said he could "see no other explanation" for the refusal of entry than his planned appearance with Huda Ammori, a founder of the group, which is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.

The Home Office said it does not comment on individual cases.

Malm is a senior lecturer in human ecology at Sweden's Lund University, and his work includes the 2021 book How to Blow up a Pipeline and 2025's The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth.

He said he had asked the Home Office to clarify its decision, but could not identify any reason other than the forthcoming London talk with Ammori, arranged by the left-wing magazine Tribune, describing the move as a "severe restriction on the free exchange of ideas".

Malm said he was not a member of Palestine Action, had never publicly backed it, and had not provided it with any financial support.

"The only link to Palestine Action is her as a person," he said, accusing the UK government of assigning "guilt by association".

The academic also acknowledged that he had previously described the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel - in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage - as "fundamentally an act of liberation".

Malm said it was possible that those comments, made during a December 2023 talk in which he also condemned the "deplorable" killing of civilians in the cross-border attack, were behind the Home Office's decision.

However, he argued that those views had long been public, including when he was last allowed into the UK to give a talk in May.

"I don't expect the British state to agree with me on Palestine or climate or anything. What I expect the British state to do is to continue to let me enter the country and to discuss with colleagues, with people who disagree with me - as I have done for years."

The UK Supreme Court is due to review Palestine Action's controversial ban under terrorism legislation.

The Home Office has said it will robustly defend against the appeal.

More than 3,700 people are believed to have been arrested in the UK over alleged support for the group. About 2,500 have been charged, though none have gone to trial as the legal challenge to the proscription continues.

The government has broad powers to bar foreign nationals from entering the UK if their presence is judged to pose a risk to society.

In April, 11 people described by then-Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as "far-right agitators" were banned from entering the UK ahead of a rally led by Tommy Robinson.

Kanye West was also refused entry that same month after backlash over his planned performance at London's Wireless Festival, following a series of antisemitic, racist and pro-Nazi comments. He had earlier apologised for the remarks and said his bipolar disorder had caused him to lose "touch with reality".

Left-wing political commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur said in June that their visas had been revoked before planned appearances in London and Oxford, allegedly "for criticising Israel".