Climate activist, author and professor Andreas Malm barred from UK

30 October 2026facebook iconUniversity professor, climate activist and author Andreas Malm has been barred from entering the UK. Swedish national Malm, an associate professor of human ecology at Lund University, had been due to speak at an event hosted by the left-wing Tribune magazine, alongside Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori.

The World Socialist Web Site and Socialist Equality Party (UK) condemn this latest attack on anti-imperialist free speech carried out by the Labour government, which justified the decision by telling Malm his presence in the UK “is not considered to be conducive to the public good”. Officials have refused to comment further.

Like its international counterparts, the British government is using its state powers and borders to hinder its political opponents’ ability to discuss and organise.

Malm is the author of multiple books on the climate crisis, including the important historical study Fossil Capital, based on his PhD research conducted in the UK. His most famous book is How to Blow Up a Pipeline, advocating direct action protest. The academic is also a vocal campaigner in support of the Palestinians, speaking at a demonstration against the Gaza genocide in Copenhagen last October.

He has travelled to the UK many times, including as recently as this May. The Electronic Travel Authorisation he received for that trip lasts for two years but was cancelled by the Burnham Labour government.

Previous visits to the country dating back ten years include speaking events at Goldsmiths, Birkbeck, Essex, SOAS, Oxford and King’s College London universities, at activist meetings around the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, and at the Historical Materialism conference. This year’s Historical Materialism conference takes place on November 5-8, meaning Malm will be blocked from attending.

He has called for the ban to be rescinded, saying he is “deeply dismayed” at the decision. Malm explained, “My position on Palestine has always been public… The only thing that could have caused this [latest decision] is that I was due to be on a panel on Wednesday evening, where I would talk to Huda Ammori of Palestine Action.”

The direct-action protest group was proscribed by the Labour government in July 2025 as a terrorist organisation, providing a pretext for the draconian treatment and sentencing of direct action protesters and for arresting over 3,000 people for expressing their support for PA.

Malm added, “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.”

His publisher, Verso, has condemned “the Home Office’s outrageous act of political censorship”. Tribune editor Oliver Eagleton told the media Malm was “being censored for speaking out about censorship, in truly Orwellian fashion.” The event he had been due to speak at alongside Ammori was the launch of Tribune’s autumn edition “EMPIRE NOW”, discussing “domination and resistance in the age of Trump.”

Other political figures have already been effectively banned from the UK. This June, Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker were denied entry in the same way as Malm. Uygur, co-host of the popular YouTube channel The Young Turks, had been scheduled to speak at the University of Oxford. Both he and Piker, a political Twitch streamer with millions of subscribers, were due to appear at the South by Southwest London festival.

Even books are being stopped at the border. International bestselling author Sally Rooney can no longer sell her novels in the UK due to her public support of Palestine Action. Passing on royalties to Rooney would place her publisher, Faber, in legal jeopardy. She declined to attend a Sky Arts award event in London in September last year, explaining, “I’m advised that I can no longer safely enter the UK without potentially facing arrest.”

Rooney said of Malm’s ban, “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.”

A much wider range of individuals have been detained for hours at the UK border, questioned and their documents and devices seized, in connection with their political views—all under anti-terror laws.

What legal powers allow the UK Home Office to bar someone from entering the country without giving a clear public reason?Why are multiple imperialist governments across Europe acting in a coordinated way to block pro-Palestinian academics, journalists and activists from entering their countries?Ask more questions at SocialismAI.comIn 2023, Craig Murray was held after returning from meetings in defence of Julian Assange and the Palestinians in Iceland. The same was done to Grayzone journalist Kit Klarenberg that year, and to French publisher Ernest Moret, after he attended mass protests in France.

In 2024, journalist Richard Medhurst was detained. Last September, leader of the Workers party of Great Britain George Galloway and his wife were stopped in what he called an act of “politically motivated intimidation”

The same anti-democratic bans and detentions are being imposed by other imperialist governments across Europe.

In April 2024, Germany blocked British-Palestinian plastic surgeon and academic Ghassan Abu-Sittah—who worked heroically through the Gaza genocide—from entering the country. It also denied entry to former Syriza finance minister and author Yanis Varoufakis. Both had been due to attend the Palestine Congress in Berlin, later stormed and broken up by police.

Last October, Palestinian activist Mohammed Khatib was prevented from entering the Netherlands after being invited to speak at Radboud University in Nijmegen.

This April, France blocked Palestinian human rights defender and General Director of Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, from entering the country where he was due to hold meetings with the French Parliament, civil society organisations and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

These attacks of free speech and movement are the concern of all socialists and defenders of democratic rights; they must be widely publicised and strenuously opposed.

Fill out the form to be contacted by someone from the WSWS in your area about getting involved.