Sally Rooney has made a deliberate choice to align her literary success with her political principles, announcing last July that all royalties from her books and their BBC adaptations will support Palestine Action. This decision carries significant professional risks, as it effectively bars the celebrated author from the UK and threatens the availability of her work in the region. Unlike many artists who express solidarity through essays, letters, or stage statements, Rooney’s commitment to an organization perceived by authorities as a target for terrorism laws moves her activism from the abstract into direct confrontation with British policy. Hard to think of one whose books could be published anywhere but here, i t’s hard to think of a published author in living memory who risked arrest in the UK for their political beliefs. Musicians can say it from the stage, and there is always a cost to it, whether it’s in plain sight and they’ve been kicked off a global tour, or it’s behind closed doors and they are simply excluded from opportunities, authors can write essays and sign letters in support of the Palestinian people; actors can voice it in interviews. Even if they logically suggest support for a proscribed organisation, don’t entail actively breaking the terrorism laws, but such actions. The lost sales and opportunities that ripple out from being effectively both barred from and banned in the UK are innumerable.
The impact of Rooney’s stand extends beyond simple financial loss. While pledging her income was a quantifiable sacrifice, the resulting exclusion from the British market creates a broader, incalculable cost. Her work, which gained global acclaim for its sharp, intimate analysis of class and human relationships in novels likeNormal PeopleandConversations With Friendsis now at the center of a debate over the limits of political expression. Critics of the current climate argue that framing support for Gaza as a radical act ignores the human reality, turning a moral concern into a supposed danger to the state. Or any state, just as nobody anywhere thinks a 94-year-old human rights barrister who was a friend of Ed Miliband’s late mother does, nobody anywhere thinks Sally Rooney poses a danger to the British state.
Many observers argue that the legal response to such activism reveals fundamental flaws in UK terrorism legislation. The government, under Keir Starmer, has seen a sharp increase in terrorism-related arrests, rising from 250 in 2024 to nearly 3,000 by 2025. Critics point out the absurdity of labeling individuals like Rooney—or the elderly human rights barristers also caught in this net—as state threats. Data from recent demonstrations further highlights this tension, with reports showing a higher participation rate among individuals over 80 than those under 20. Keir Starmer, paradoxically, given that the two things in his favour were his caution and his legal hinterland, painted himself into an absurd corner, where terrorism arrests went up between 2024 and 2025 from 250 to nea. More of them were over 80 than under 20, on demos where anyone crunched the numbers.
This situation echoes historical precedents of Irish solidarity with international struggles, such as the 1984 Dunnes Stores strike. That protest began when 21-year-old Mary Manning refused to handle South African produce in opposition to apartheid, resulting in years of meager strike pay. The conflict gained international significance in 1985 when Desmond Tutu attempted to invite the strikers to South Africa, only to have them barred at the border. The state’s attempt to exert control ultimately drew global attention to its own vulnerabilities, a parallel often drawn to the current pressure on activists. In between, though, in 1985, Desmond Tutu met Manning and her fellow strikers on his way to get the Nobel peace prize, extending as he did an invitation to visit him in South Africa – which they took him up on, only to b.
Rooney’s position continues the tradition of Irish artists engaging deeply with geopolitical issues despite expectations of staying silent. By prioritizing her stance on Palestine over commercial stability in the UK, she has turned her personal platform into a symbolic challenge to current law. Her actions underscore the growing divide between civil activism and state legislation, framing her lost royalties not merely as a donation, but as a significant, ongoing emblem of resistance against a system that critics believe has lost its sense of proportion. And in so doing, took on the idea that caring about Gaza is somehow a crank’s life choice; insisted that, it was from a reputation of delicately challenging but everyday subtlety that Rooney assumed her outrider position. Since there is a fix for that, which is what she’s doing – avoiding the UK, rooney’s courage is not so much in risking imprisonment. Rather, she has chosen the thorniest possible path for this cause.
