Sally Rooney says she cannot ‘safely enter’ U.K. after supporting banned pro-Palestinian group

Sally Rooney speaks onstage during an event in January 2020 in Pasadena, California. Rooney says she cannot "safely enter" the UK after supporting a banned pro-Palestinian group. (Credit: Erik Voake/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Irish novelist Sally Rooney skipped an awards ceremony in London, saying that she risked being arrested under terror laws due to her support for the banned activist group Palestine Action.

Rooney’s editor Alex Bowler read her statement at the Sky Arts Awards on Tuesday, where the author’s fourth book “Intermezzo” won the award for literature.

“I wish I could be here with you this evening to accept the honor in person,” her statement read, “but, because of my support for non-violent anti-war protest, I’m advised I can no longer safely enter the U.K. without potentially facing arrest.”

Rooney reiterated her “belief in the dignity and beauty of all human life, and my solidarity with the people of Palestine,” in the statement.

London’s Metropolitan Police told CNN in a statement Thursday it “wouldn’t comment on an individual at the point of arrest or prior to this.”

CNN has reached out to Rooney and Bowler for comment through Faber, her publisher.

Palestine Action is a U.K.-based organization that aims to disrupt the operations of weapons manufacturers connected to the Israeli government.

British authorities have had their eyes on the group since 2020, but its June 2025 action – when activists broke into Britain’s largest airbase, RAF Brize Norton, vandalizing two Airbus Voyager refueling planes – led to its proscription.

Palestine Action is believed to be the first direct-action group to be designated a terrorist organization in the U.K. The ban means that showing support for the organization carries a maximum sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

Civil liberties campaigners across the U.K. and beyond have condemned the designation, saying that applying terrorism laws to such a group risk chilling free speech and assembly and sets a dangerous precedent for protest rights.

Since its terror designation, more than 1,500 individuals have been arrested at solidarity protests across the U.K., many for holding signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

In August, Rooney also denounced the ban, writing an Irish Times column titled: “I too support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under U.K. law, so be it.”

She wrote that “an increasing number of artists and writers can no longer safely travel to Britain to speak in public” and that she intended to take the residual fees from BBC adaptations of her first two novels to donate them toward “supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can.”

Israel has been facing growing international condemnation. A United Nations commission concluded this week that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Israel denies any accusations of genocide.

“If the British state considers this ‘terrorism,’” Rooney wrote, “then perhaps it should investigate the shady organizations that continue to promote my work and fund my activities, such as WH Smith and the BBC.”

CNN has reached out to the retailer WH Smith. A spokesperson for the BBC told CNN in a statement that Rooney does not currently receive payment directly from the BBC, “and she is not contracted by us.”

Longstanding critic

Rooney, best known for her novel “Normal People” and its subsequent adaptation for TV, has long criticized Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its pre-war blockade of Gaza.

In 2021, she refused to sell the Hebrew-language rights for her third novel “Beautiful World, Where Are You” to an Israeli publisher out of her support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led global campaign promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel.

The writer’s stance underlines Ireland’s longstanding support of the Palestinian cause.

Ireland is one of the most pro-Palestinian countries in Europe, a position born out of a shared experience of subjugation by an occupying state.

In January, the Irish government joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide, and the country appears close to passing a bill that will ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Nonetheless, Rooney has criticized Ireland’s government for not speaking out more forcefully in favor of protesters recently arrested in the UK.

“If the Government in Dublin truly believes that Israel is committing genocide,” Rooney said, “how can it look elsewhere while its nearest neighbor funds and supports that genocide and its own citizens are arrested simply for speaking out?”

CNN has reached out to Ireland’s Foreign Ministry for comment.