Hanif Kureishi, Billy Bragg and freedom of speech groups have voiced alarm after a number of venues cancelled events to promote a book by an anti-racism campaigner amid threats and fears that the recent riots have emboldened the far right. An east London bookshop this week became the latest venue to pull plans to promote Rebel Sounds, a book about the role music plays in the fight against racism and other struggles. It follows the scrapping of similar events at bookshops and pubs over the last few weeks, and the cancellation by the BFI London film festival (LFF) last month of a screening of a documentary about the far right. Joe Mulhall, the author of Rebel Sounds and director of research at the anti-racism organisation Hope Not Hate, said: “Sadly, it feels like we are going backwards.” Mulhall held an event at a secret location last Sunday night after a pub cancelled what was intended to be an evening of discussion and music about the book. “The irony wasn’t lost on us that we were having to meet in secret when this is a book about people being forced to do things in a clandestine way in the past in Britain because of the rise of the National Front or other countries because of repressive regimes,” he said. “You can’t blame small independent venues like bookshops and pubs but you would think that the LFF is big enough that they shouldn’t have cancelled. They have the capacity and resources to protect an event if they wanted to.”
Another bookshop that cancelled a few weeks ago after receiving threats has now pulled out of plans to restage the event in December after getting new threats immediately after it was listed online. Threats have been made by email and in phone calls, while extremists from groups angered by Hope Not Hate’s work have been publishing numbers on social media and urging supporters to call. Police were called to a branch of Waterstones in late September when a far-right activist took a seat in the front row and attempted to disrupt the event. The development has shocked artists and veterans of anti-racist campaigns who had believed the days of venues being in fear of the far right had been consigned to the past. But the summer violence – described by Keir Starmer as far-right riots – has contributed to a changed atmosphere. It comes after the far right and conspiracy theorists have mobilised aggressive protests against venues hosting shows featuring drag queens reading to young children. Bragg, the socialist singer-songwriter whose own anti-fascist activism through music features in Mulhall’s book, told the Guardian: “This reminds me of the 1970s and 80s when we had to do solidarity gigs for people. “People’s safety is so important but we need to stand up to this kind of thing, which really is a freedom of speech issue and in this case there are threats of violence.” Kureishi, whose fiction has drawn from his own experience of the threat posed to British Asians by the National Front in his youth, said he was shocked to hear about Mulhall’s experience. Another British writer, Guy Gunaratne, said: “That these readings are now being conducted clandestinely should concern everyone committed to free speech.” Jemimah Steinfeld, the CEO of Index on Censorship, said she was concerned about what appeared to be a “worrying trend”. “If even an organisation like the BFI is afraid then what hope is there for smaller venues and what message does it send out? You have to put the people working at those places first, but we are also seeing a retreat into safer spaces and it’s something we as a society will regret.” Daniel Gorman, the director of English PEN, said: “English PEN is deeply concerned that threats from the far right have led to venues cancelling planned events with writers and artists. This is part of a worrying trend curtailing the freedom of expression of authors and performers.” Last month the LFF cancelled the screening of Undercover: Exposing the Far Right, a documentary that followed Hope Not Hate campaigners. It remains unclear whether the BFI was acting in the face of viable threats. Kristy Matheson, the director of the LFF, said: “I took onboard the expert opinion of colleagues around the safety and wellbeing risks that the screening could have created for audiences and the team and that informed our decision.” The documentary’s director, Havana Marking, said: “I don’t think it was taken seriously enough in London at the beginning and then there was a panic. What needs to really happen now is that there is a conversation to ensure this does not happen again.”