McEntee to raise Sally Rooney book sales withdrawal with UK foreign secretary

Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee will speak directly to Britain’s foreign secretary Ed Miliband after it emerged the work of award-winning Irish author Sally Rooney will no longer be distributed in Britain due to her support for direct action group Palestine Action.McEntee said she was “shocked” when she read the news about the bestselling writer’s work, which will be withdrawn in the UK as publishers Faber & Faber can no longer pass on her royalties because of her support for UK-based direct action group Palestine Action.Rooney donated some of the proceeds from the sale of her books to support Palestine Action, which was proscribed in the UK in July last year as a terrorism-supporting organisation. It is an offence under the UK’s Terrorism Act to support banned organisations.“I have spoken quite a number of times to the foreign minister who very clearly has said set out his position in support of Palestine,” McEntee said. “I’ve engaged with him on steps and measures that they can take as a government to show and reflect that support in terms of this specific decision.”READ MORE“I was shocked as well by what I read about Sally Rooney. I like her work. We all watch it and read it as well,” the Minister said.She added: “I have no problem in speaking directly to the minister, but obviously any decision around their laws or how they’re interpreted by the courts is a matter for the courts there.”She was responding to Social Democrats foreign affairs spokeswoman Sinéad Gibney who described Rooney as “one of our most prominent contemporary authors” whose books and TV shows based on them “are cherished the world over”.Publishers Faber & Faber will no longer sell her books in the UK, explaining they can no longer pass on royalties to her because of her support for Palestine Action and the interpretation of UK antiterrorism laws as they apply to that.Gibney said “she’s not alone. Thousands of people, including older people, disabled people and even a vicar, have been arrested in the UK for merely holding up signs, saying that they support Palestine Action.” Meanwhile, UK Labour MPs called for the country’s proscription of Palestine Action to be overturned.Ian Byrne, one of nine Labour government MPs to vote against the July 2025 decision to ban Palestine Action, said the impact on Rooney was “draconian”.Byrne, who represents the constituency of Liverpool West Derby, told The Irish Times that the decision by Rooney to withdraw her books from Britain was “yet another unintended consequence of that awful piece of legislation”.“I was completely against the proscription at the time and now I am thankful I voted the right way. This thing with Sally Rooney is just another element of it, targeting an author. It’s like banning books, part of that drift towards authoritarianism we’re worried about.”He said he had received “no blowback” internally in Labour for his opposition to the ban and added “hopefully the prime minister [Andy Burnham] will review it”.Richard Burgon, another Labour rebel MP who voted against the proscription, said Rooney was “one of the best writers of her generation”.“This ban [on Palestine Action] needs to be overturned,” he said.Elsewhere, Downing Street has defended the ban on the activist group, whose members have faced criminal charges and, in a few cases, conviction, for violent incidents before the group was banned in 2025.Palestine Action initially won a court challenge to the ban, but it was overturned this year in the UK’s court of appeal. While it is proscribed it remains illegal under British law to show support for the group, which has attacked factories in Britain linked to UK military support for Israel.When asked about the decision made by Rooney, a spokeswoman for UK prime minister Andy Burnham said the court of appeal “found that Palestine Action had committed terrorist acts”.Burnham’s government has taken a harder line against Israel than the previous Keir Starmer administration, whose government also voted to recognise Palestine as a state. Miliband last month announced Britain would sanction Israeli West Bank settlements over the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.