Common items found on the black market in the UK may include: prescription and controlled medications, counterfeit branded goods, illicit drugs, Sally Rooney’s latest book Intermezzo, counterfeit tobacco…hang on? Intermezzo?
On 14 October 2026, Faber & Faber announced it would no longer supply Sally Rooney’s books to UK booksellers, saying it “cannot pass on UK earnings” to her under current legislation. That legislation is the Terrorism Act 2000, under which Palestine Action was proscribed in July 2025. Rooney, who has said she will keep supporting the group with her royalties, had warned of this outcome. In a witness statement to the High Court in November 2025, Rooney cautioned the ban could make it a crime for her publisher, and for the production company behind the BBC’s adaptation of Normal People and Conversations with Friends, to pay her royalties if it was suspected the money would go towards supporting Palestine Action. Now, expressed support for Palestine Action is punishable by a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
In the draft order to proscribe Palestine Action, then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote that “the right to peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy” and that, should Parliament vote to proscribe, “that right will be unaffected.” In my view, Faber’s decision to withdraw Rooney’s books from UK shelves only undermines that assurance.
Proscription does not make violence any more unlawful than it already is. Instead, it criminalises certain speech, associations, and financial dealings that would otherwise be lawful in order to combat a terror group. The real-world impact of proscription in the case of Palestine Action, who vehemently contest they are a terror group, has resulted in something far more dramatic than the mere combating of a singular organisation. It has resulted in the effective banning of books. A book read all over the world, by a serious and much-loved author. It is hard to imagine a starker example of government overreach: laws that restrict speech and peaceful assembly have, in practice, taken a writer’s work out of British readers’ hands.
Rooney’s departure from the UK literary scene is but one example of overreach in action. Thousands of ordinary people are now caught up in the ban, with an estimated 3,700 arrested over alleged support for Palestine Action and around 2,500 charged. None have stood trial, because their cases have a decision pending by the Supreme Court on whether the proscription itself is lawful: a challenge it will hear in November.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has stated that the proscription of Palestine Action threatens to have a “chilling effect” on political protest and the exercise of advocacy rights for many people. Though the content of Rooney’s books is unrelated to her expression of support for Palestine Action, the infringement upon her artistic licence and livelihood consequent to proscription has resulted in a direct attack on her work. If a writer’s work can no longer reach readers because of the politics attached to her name, that is suppression of speech, and it happened notwithstanding the law was not aimed at her books.
To live in a climate where writers find their books vanishing from shelves because of their political beliefs is to live in a climate of fear. Rooney’s case has implications beyond Palestine Action. While some of its activists have been convicted of serious offences, including property damage and bodily harm, a terrorist designation supersedes punishing criminal conduct: it criminalises peaceful expressions of support and, as Rooney’s situation shows, may sever a writer’s connection with her readers. When a measure that has divided respectable legal and fair-minded public opinion leaves a novelist’s books missing from UK shelves, it is fair to ask whether ordinary principles of pluralism and liberal debate are in peril.
“Glasgow Palestine Action – Thales” by Campaign Against Arms Trade is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Pluralism in peril? Sally Rooney and the Palestine Action ban
Common items found on the black market in the UK may include: prescription and controlled medications, counterfeit branded goods, illicit drugs, Sally Rooney’s latest book Intermezzo, counterfeit tobacco…hang on? Intermezzo?
On 14 October 2026, Faber & Faber announced it would no longer supply Sally Rooney’s books to UK booksellers, saying it “cannot pass on UK earnings” to her under current legislation. That legislation is the Terrorism Act 2000, under which Palestine Action was proscribed in July 2025. Rooney, who has said she will keep supporting the group with her royalties, had warned of this outcome. In a witness statement to the High Court in November 2025, Rooney cautioned the ban could make it a crime for her publisher, and for the production company behind the BBC’s adaptation of Normal People and Conversations with Friends, to pay her royalties if it was suspected the money would go towards supporting Palestine Action. Now, expressed support for Palestine Action is punishable by a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
In the draft order to proscribe Palestine Action, then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote that “the right to peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy” and that, should Parliament vote to proscribe, “that right will be unaffected.” In my view, Faber’s decision to withdraw Rooney’s books from UK shelves only undermines that assurance.
Proscription does not make violence any more unlawful than it already is. Instead, it criminalises certain speech, associations, and financial dealings that would otherwise be lawful in order to combat a terror group. The real-world impact of proscription in the case of Palestine Action, who vehemently contest they are a terror group, has resulted in something far more dramatic than the mere combating of a singular organisation. It has resulted in the effective banning of books. A book read all over the world, by a serious and much-loved author. It is hard to imagine a starker example of government overreach: laws that restrict speech and peaceful assembly have, in practice, taken a writer’s work out of British readers’ hands.
Rooney’s departure from the UK literary scene is but one example of overreach in action. Thousands of ordinary people are now caught up in the ban, with an estimated 3,700 arrested over alleged support for Palestine Action and around 2,500 charged. None have stood trial, because their cases have a decision pending by the Supreme Court on whether the proscription itself is lawful: a challenge it will hear in November.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has stated that the proscription of Palestine Action threatens to have a “chilling effect” on political protest and the exercise of advocacy rights for many people. Though the content of Rooney’s books is unrelated to her expression of support for Palestine Action, the infringement upon her artistic licence and livelihood consequent to proscription has resulted in a direct attack on her work. If a writer’s work can no longer reach readers because of the politics attached to her name, that is suppression of speech, and it happened notwithstanding the law was not aimed at her books.
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To live in a climate where writers find their books vanishing from shelves because of their political beliefs is to live in a climate of fear. Rooney’s case has implications beyond Palestine Action. While some of its activists have been convicted of serious offences, including property damage and bodily harm, a terrorist designation supersedes punishing criminal conduct: it criminalises peaceful expressions of support and, as Rooney’s situation shows, may sever a writer’s connection with her readers. When a measure that has divided respectable legal and fair-minded public opinion leaves a novelist’s books missing from UK shelves, it is fair to ask whether ordinary principles of pluralism and liberal debate are in peril.
“Glasgow Palestine Action – Thales” by Campaign Against Arms Trade is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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