How Sally Rooney's support for Palestine Action led to UK exodus

Sally Rooney, Ireland's premier voice of sad-girl fiction, can no longer sell her novels in the UK.

Rooney said she was being forced to withdraw her books due to her support for the organisation Palestine Action.

This includes cultural juggernaut Normal People, which has sold more than three million copies.

It is the latest stand-off between those who support the organisation and the UK, which has designated it as a terrorist organisation.

Hailed as the "Salinger for the Snapchat generation", Rooney rose to prominence with 2018's Normal People.

The bestseller was adapted for TV in 2020, starring Paul Mescal in his breakout role, with a series which has been streamed more than 65 million times and broke BBC streaming records that year.

She was named among Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2022, cited by Girls creator Lena Dunham as "the minimalist examiner of modern romance".

Other novels, Conversations with Friends and Intermezzo, achieved similar acclaim.

She has recently become an outspoken voice for Palestine Action, sometimes causing direct conflict with her literary career.

Rooney won the Sky Arts award for literature for Intermezzo last year but did not attend the ceremony, saying she could "no longer safely enter the UK" without potentially facing arrest.

In August, she said she intended to use her novel proceeds and TV residuals to fund Palestine Action.

On Thursday, her publishing house Faber confirmed it "cannot pass on UK earnings".

"As such, and in full agreement with Sally, we have taken the decision that we can no longer supply her works in the UK in any format," it said.

This move will not affect Australian sales.

In a statement to The Guardian, Rooney said it was a result of an op-ed supporting Palestine Action.

The August 2025 piece in The Irish Times outlined her support of the group: "If this makes me a 'supporter of terror' under UK law, so be it."

Palestine Action was formed in 2020 by Huda Ammori, and was founded on principles similar to Extinction Rebellion.

It describes itself as a "direct action movement committed to ending global participation in Israel's genocidal and apartheid regime".

This has included attempts to disrupt the supply chains of arms manufacturers Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin.

In 2022, a protest at a Glasgow weapons equipment factory caused more than £1 million ($1.8 million) in damages.

The group's efforts have ramped up since the Gaza War, and the UK has designated it illegal, banning the group under anti-terror legislation.

The US has also imposed sanctions on Palestine Action.

Australia doesn't list the group as a terror organisation, though a 2025 petition was placed before Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to consider it.

The group is legally considered among the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the UK, and even those wearing a T-shirt supporting the group could face jail time.

More than 3,700 people are believed to have been arrested in relation to the ban, the BBC says.

It is a ban labelled by UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk as "disproportionate and unnecessary".

"The decision also conflates protected expression and other conduct with acts of terrorism and so could readily lead to further chilling effect on the lawful exercise of these rights by many people," he said.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has defended the ban, saying "supporting the Palestinian cause is not the same as supporting Palestine Action".

It has also faced several legal challenges as seen below:

June 2025: Palestine Action members break into a RAF base in Oxfordshire and spray-paint two military planes red

July 2025: Palestine Action ban comes into effect

February 2026: UK's High Court rules the Home Office's decision unlawful

June 2026: Five Court of Appeal judges rule the government's terror listing is lawful, overruling the High Court decision

June 2026: Four Palestine Action activists are jailed in the first convictions believed to be connected to the terrorism ruling

November 2026 (TBC): Palestine Action to appeal that ruling, with the case to be brought before the UK's highest court next month

British Labour MP John McDonnell decried the move, saying he was "really worried people will be deprived of the opportunity of listening to Sally Rooney's words".

"If a great Irish writer's books can no longer be published in the UK because she stands with Palestine, the question isn't what law might Sally Rooney have broken, it's what sort of country has Britain become," Patrick Corrigan, head of nations and regions at Amnesty International UK, said.

Readers and Writers Against the Genocide co-founder Kirsty Wilson said it also left questions about who in the UK would want to acquire Rooney's next book.

"Perhaps she will publish with an Irish publisher, and a local Australian publisher etc. and bypass the UK for now," she said.

More broadly, Wilson said it was reflective of the issues pro-Palestinian Australian authors also faced.

She pointed to author Randa Abdel-Fattah, who was uninvited from the Adelaide Writers' Festival, with the then-board claiming it would be "culturally insensitive" for her to appear due to past statements she had made regarding Israel and Zionism.

An Indigenous author's picture book was also scrapped for publication in April after past comments by illustrator Matt Chun were found to have breached the University of Queensland's policy on antisemitism.

"Palestinian Australian writers and pro-Palestinian writers are definitely experiencing free speech concerns whenever they advocate for Palestine . These voices are being silenced and there is a definite chilling effect," Wilson said.