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Swedish climate activist barred from UK ahead of planned event with Palestine Action founder
Andreas Malm was scheduled to appear alongside Huda Ammori at event timed to coincide with Supreme Court challenge to Palestine Action ban
The Swedish climate activist Andreas Malm has been barred from entering the UK ahead of a planned speaking engagement alongside the co-founder of the banned Palestine action group.
He was due to speak alongside Huda Ammori at an event next Wednesday, where he was expected to challenge the decision to proscribe the group and make claims about the ban’s impact on author Sally Rooney.
Malm – author of The Destruction of Palestine Is The Destruction of the Earth, and How to Blow Up a Pipeline – was reportedly informed by immigration officials that his presence in the UK “may not be considered to be conducive to the public good”.
His speaking engagement at the conference, put on by the Tribune organisation, and another planned appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Radical With Gabriel Gatehouse programme, were held at the same time as a challenge to the proscription of Palestine Action in the Supreme Court goes ahead next week.
Malm’s book The Destruction of Palestine begins with the words: “We have now clocked half a year of this genocide. Half a year has passed since the resistance launched Tufan al Aqsa…”
It continues: “The state of Israel is now committing the worst crime known to humanity…”
Tufan al Aqsa is the Arabic name for the large-scale terror operation launched by Hamas and the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades against Israel on October 7.
Published by Verso Books in January 2025, the book attempts to argue that Israel’s military actions in Gaza are deeply tied to an environmental catastrophe and fossil-fuelled capitalism.
Among those to criticise the decision to ban Malm from the UK was the author Sally Rooney, who said the move was a “sad and frightening act of cultural self-harm”.
Malm, a human ecology professor at Lund University in Sweden, 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 does not discuss individual cases.
Tribune is one of the oldest left-wing publications, but it repeatedly faced financial troubles. In 2025, Mohamed Ali Harrath, owner of the Islam Channel, purchased the magazine.
Its editor, Oliver Eagleton, hit out at the Malm ban, saying: “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.”
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