LONDON — Swedish academic Andreas Malm has been denied entry to the UK after the Home Office cancelled his Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), telling him his 'presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good', Al Jazeera reported. The decision came a week before Malm was due to speak at a London event organised by the socialist magazine Tribune.

Source: Al Jazeera, Oct 30, 2026

Malm, an associate professor of human ecology at Lund University in Sweden and the author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, told Al Jazeera he believes the cancellation is linked to his planned appearance alongside Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, which the UK proscribed as a terrorist organisation last year. The panel is due to be chaired by Hala Hanina of Palestine Deep Dive.

'I have been going regularly to the UK for decades. My position on Palestine has always been public,' Malm said, adding that his most recent visit was in May and that he had made no public comments about Palestine in the intervening months. 'The only thing that could have caused this is that I was due to be on a panel on Wednesday evening, where I would talk to Huda Ammori of Palestine Action,' he told Al Jazeera.

A panel, a court challenge and a banned group

The Tribune event was timed to coincide with the start of a Supreme Court challenge to the Palestine Action ban next Wednesday, and Malm was also due to be interviewed for BBC Radio 4 while in London, The Guardian reported. Author Sally Rooney said the decision to bar Malm was a 'sad and frightening act of cultural self-harm', The Guardian reported.

Source: The Guardian, Oct 30, 2026

In its email, the Home Office told Malm he would need to apply for a visa if he wished to visit the UK, after which his circumstances would be considered in more detail, Al Jazeera reported. The stated processing time for a standard visitor visa is three weeks, meaning he would not receive a decision in time for next week's event even if his application were approved. The Home Office told The Guardian it does not discuss individual cases, and it had not replied to Al Jazeera's request for clarification on whether the cancellation was connected to the planned event.