Sally Rooney vows to support banned group Palestine Action despite UK terror law

Celebrated Irish author Sally Rooney says she will continue supporting Palestine Action, despite the UK government banning the group as a terrorist organisation last month.

Writing in The Irish Times, the "Normal People" and "Intermezzo" author said she plans to use her earnings and public platform to back the direct-action group, stating: “If this makes me a supporter of terror under UK law, so be it.”

Palestine Action was officially proscribed in July, shortly after the group claimed responsibility for breaking into RAF Brize Norton and spraying red paint over two military transport jets – damage reportedly worth around £7million.

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote in the Observer that the move to ban the group under the Terrorism Act reflected that it was more than “a regular protest group known for occasional stunts”.

Supporting a proscribed group in the UK is a criminal offence, carrying a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

Rooney, 34, who lives in the west of Ireland, said in her piece that she’ll “go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide,” using the proceeds of her work, including residuals from the BBC co-productions of Normal People and Conversations With Friends.

More than 700 people have been arrested since the ban came into effect on 5 July, including over 500 at a protest in London’s Parliament Square earlier this month. The demonstrators carried placards declaring: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Among those arrested was Alice Oswald, 58, the eminent poet and former Oxford professor of poetry, who said she took part after giving online classes to young people in Gaza.

Police figures show half of those now facing terror charges are over the age of 60.

Rooney described the protesters as “brave individuals” and said she felt “obliged” to publicly restate her support.

“The present UK government has willingly stripped its own citizens of basic rights and freedoms,” she wrote, warning that "the ramifications for cultural and intellectual life in the UK... are and will be profound". 

She has previously expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Last year, she joined over 1,000 authors in launching a mass boycott of Israeli publishers as a declaration against the state’s dispossession of the Palestinian people.

In 2021, she declined to allow her book "Beautiful World, Where Are You" to be translated into Hebrew by an Israeli publisher, saying she would welcome a translation by one that shared her political stance.