Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley and Others Back Sally Rooney in Open Letter
Paul Mescal, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jessie Buckley are among the actors, musicians and writers who have signed an open letter to the UK government in support of novelist Sally Rooney.
The letter, published as a cover story in the New Statesman on 21 October 2026, is headed "Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist." Its other signatories include Lenny Abrahamson, who directed the television adaptation of Rooney's novel Normal People, along with Jonathan Glazer, Irvine Welsh, Susan Sarandon, Tilda Swinton, the band Kneecap and Massive Attack frontman Robert Del Naja. Mescal and Edgar-Jones starred in that series.
The reason for the letter is a dispute over Rooney's support for Palestine Action. The group has been proscribed as a terrorism organisation by UK authorities. Rooney said in 2025 that she intended to keep using her royalties to support it.
Her books are now off sale in UK shops. Faber, her publisher in the UK and Ireland, said current UK legislation meant it could not pass UK earnings on to Rooney, so it pulled her books from British shops, according to Variety. The BBC reported that her novels will no longer be supplied to booksellers in the UK, a point Rooney herself made in October.
Rooney has said she can no longer receive royalties from British sales. She also said that efforts to publish her work in the UK "could now constitute a serious criminal offence." The Guardian reported on 14 October that she had cancelled a planned UK trip because she feared arrest.
The open letter calls the withdrawal of her books an affront to free speech. It says her books must be available to the public. It also urges the government to amend the anti-terror legislation behind the decision. AFP reported that the authors want the UK to halt what they call a "draconian" ban.
For readers, the practical point is simple. Rooney's books are not currently being sold in UK shops, and the letter's signatories want that changed. The letter is the latest step in a dispute that began with Rooney's public statements about her royalties and has now drawn in some of the best-known faces in British and Irish film and television.
