If Even Sally Rooney Can’t Speak Freely About Palestine, What Hope Do Ordinary Culture Workers Have?

Though heralded for its ability to speak the truth, the UK’s cultural sector has long been subjected to censorship, mostly aimed at critics of UK foreign policy. This has intensified since October 2023, with Turner Prize-winning British Jewish artist, BDS supporter and self-described “ex-Israeli” Tai Shani reporting a coordinated campaign by collectors and gallerists against institutions that showed her work, and world-renowned novelist Sally Rooney testifying in court that her novels might no longer be publishable in the UK due to her public support for Palestine Action. Meanwhile, in Germany, Palestinian author Adania Shibli had her award ceremony at the Frankfurt book fair postponed – one of countless Palestinian artists to be punished for supporting their own people, or merely existing, during an ongoing genocide. If even these cultural figureheads – insulated at least somewhat, one might think, by celebrity – are being silenced on Palestine, what hope do ordinary culture workers have? Very little, I have discovered.

This summer, the LGBTQ+ charity Queercircle asked me to help devise a survey and, with the results of it, write a report on how workers at visual arts institutions have had their views on the genocide censored (we decided to exclude artists, many of whom have been outspoken on Palestine, though still subjected to censorship). With several high-profile examples of institutional arts censorship in mind – the Barbican cancelling a discussion featuring representatives of a Palestinian community radio station; the Home arts complex in Manchester pulling an event showcasing Palestinian writers; Bristol’s Arnolfini arts centre cancelling two Bristol Palestine Film Festival programmes – we aimed to find out what else might have happened behind the scenes. We sent our survey to a range of arts professionals, 44 of whom responded, all of them anonymously. The results have now been published as Let’s Create Change, a riff on Arts Council England (ACE)’s strategy for 2020-30, Let’s Create.

A large majority of respondents – 72% – noticed inconsistencies around how principles of free speech are applied and policed in their institution. Several noted that their organisations readily published statements in solidarity with Ukraine but kept quiet about Gaza, citing an apparent obligation to remain neutral. 54% had been told that particular views might raise the hackles of trustees; “You can say what you want as long as it doesn’t upset stakeholders,” one respondent noted. Respondents reported being asked to water down or even entirely remove reference to Palestine or, at best, offer a “both sides” framing that casts both Israelis and Palestinians as “victims of violence”. “I have been asked to reframe active language in passive tone and/or ‘reference/cite’ material that in other circumstances would be permissible,” said one respondent. At times, a senior member of staff could have a chilling effect simply by telling an employee “not to assume everyone shares your views”. Though Palestine was the most often cited issue among respondents, others arose, too: one respondent was asked to “offer opinions from my ‘lived experience as a Black woman’’’ before being told she was “too political, hyper-critical” and “making trouble”.

Often such internal dynamics were the result of pressure applied from without. 54% of our survey respondents said that lobby groups had targeted their organisation, whether by contacting it directly, by picketing it or criticising it in the media. Some 28% of respondents said that their organisation had been reported to the Charity Commission, in at least one case by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). Since its foundation in 2010, UKLFI has made something of a cottage industry of reporting organisations to the commission, and was itself referred to the same body after Cage International reported that UKLFI and the Campaign Against Antisemitism had “weaponised regulatory frameworks and vexatious lawfare to stifle free speech and pro-Palestine activism in the UK”. (In our report, we quoted UKLFI’s response to the Cage report, in which it said it only reports organisations “if they promote terrorism or racial hatred, or exclude or cancel people because they are Jewish, Israeli or Zionist, or engage in activities outside their charitable objectives.”) One respondent said they were expressly told not to use their organisation’s name in a Gaza fundraiser “as board members and the chair hold Zionist views and work closely with UK Lawyers for Israel”; the same organisation had recently hosted a fundraiser for Ukraine. Other respondents noted that the media tried to intimidate their organisations out of support for LGBTQ+ people by naming them in articles about the “ideological” or “irresponsible” use of taxpayers’ money.

As one respondent noted, this climate of suppression produces a sterile, unadventurous and uncritical culture that will ultimately harm the arts sector – something that was obviously the aim of the Conservative austerity programme and the exorbitant tuition fees applied to British universities as part of it. Hoping to counter this, our report made a range of recommendations, including that both the Charity Commission’s complaints process and ACE’s risk register (which helps to determine who gets funded) be reviewed, and that both bodies offer greater clarity about what the organisations under their jurisdiction are allowed to say and do politically. We also ask for assurance that arts funding bodies will operate without government interference. We await the forthcoming report on ACE with interest, especially as Baroness Margaret Hodge – a fierce opponent of Corbyn’s leadership and one of the few MPs who has continued to accept funds from Labour Friends of Israel to travel to the country during its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza – has been charged with leading it.

It’s unlikely this government will take any notice of our findings or recommendations, given its lack of attention to the arts in its manifesto, its inaction while in power and its intensification of the Tory crackdown on protest and freedom of expression, notably the ban on Palestine Action. Yet our hope is that with this report, we will show culture workers that they are not alone in their opposition to genocide, nor in being censored for expressing it. We also hope to have set out clear steps governments and arts institutions can take to end this culture of fear, including ensuring arts funders are fully independent of governments; incorporating rights to political expression within workers’ contracts; ensuring trustees can’t interfere in programming; and rejecting unethical sponsorships. Though Grey Labour is evidently a lost cause, our hope is that our recommendations will influence the Greens’ cultural policy, or that of the nascent Your Party. It is taking far too long for the world to recognise what is happening in Gaza as a genocide, and even those who have – or, as Omar El Akkad predicts, eventually will – will likely never acknowledge the appalling way in which those who tried to raise the alarm were treated. I hope Let’s Create Change starts a more honest conversation about censorship in the arts – and more importantly, how we can fight it.