Now it’s the left who wants to ban Marilyn Manson

In 1997, shock rocker Marilyn Manson was due to play a concert in Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, which was near where I lived at the time. I was in my mid-twenties, and although I wasn’t particularly a fan of Manson, I went to most rock shows that happened nearby. Yet, as I was weighing up whether to go to this one, the choice was taken out of my hands: the show did not take place after Manson was banned from the venue.

Local conservatives had organised a campaign against the concert, roping in concerned parents and various religious figures. It was claimed that Manson would show homosexual acts, drugs and rape on stage. His local promoter tried to fight back against this blatant censorship, but those who opposed the concert had worked themselves into a frenzy. They seemed prepared to go to any lengths to stop Manson from playing – an objective they eventually achieved.

As I saw it at the time, here was the priggish, moralising right trying to inflict its worldview on the rest of us. It affirmed my own youthful sense of myself as a left-winger, someone who was on the side of politics that championed freedom of expression.

Fast forward 28 years, and it seems that self-righteous local politicians and interest groups are once again trying to ban Marilyn Manson from playing a gig. Only this time, the town is Brighton, on England’s south coast, and those trying to shut Manson down are on the left of politics.

One of those pushing for a ban is Siân Berry, the Green MP for Brighton Pavillion. She claims that Manson’s concert may violate Brighton’s ‘city plan’, which asserts that there is ‘no place in our city for fear of crime, violence or abuse’. Speaking earlier this week, Berry said, ‘Many survivors in Brighton and Hove, and organisations supporting them, will have serious concerns about this booking and its wider impact on other people visiting the city centre, local residents and the wider community’.

If you’re wondering what Manson has done to incur the wrath of Berry and other East Sussex lefties, he was accused by several women, over the course of many years, of sexual abuse. However, in January this year, after a long police investigation, Los Angeles County’s district attorney announced that all charges would be dropped. LA County concluded that the allegations were too old, and that there was insufficient evidence to mount a prosecution.

So this is where we are. Left-wing MPs and activists in Brighton are trying to stop a Marilyn Manson concert from happening because of unproven allegations. As far as the criminal-justice system goes, Manson is an innocent man. Yet the likes of Berry have decided to treat him as a convicted man, based on no additional evidence.

What’s striking is how much these so-called progressives sound like the conservatives and religious fanatics who banned Manson from performing in Calgary all those years ago. Like them, they are absolutely convinced that Manson’s mere presence in Brighton will have a terrible impact on ‘locals and the wider community’. And they’re also absolutely convinced that they are in the right.

This is what the left has become in 2025 – a holier-than-thou, quasi-religious cult. It isn’t enough for left-wingers to disagree with something – they have to ban it on behalf of everyone else. As they see it, no one in society should be subjected to something as supposedly morally wicked as Marilyn Manson. Won’t anyone think of the children?

Over the past decade, this fanaticism has led lefties to turn against all speech and artistic expression that contravene their dogma. And it has led them to seek the cancellation of any individuals they deem ‘problematic’. As a result, creativity across Western societies has shrivelled, as everyone is terrified of being targeted by the thoughtpolice.

This is a devastating turn of events. I want to see the return of the left from my youth. A left that would champion free expression over censorship. A left that would challenge dogmatism and priggishness. A left, that is, that would have fought for the right of a controversial rock star to play a gig. Is it too much to hope that this left could make a comeback? Stranger things have happened.

Nick Tyrone is a journalist, author and think-tanker. His latest novel, The Patient, is out now.