Political activism is crushing freedom in the arts

The arts world is in crisis. In recent months alone, we’ve seen writers, musicians and theatre-makers withdrawing from festivals and productions under pressure from political activists.

Playwright Caryl Churchill pulled out of a project at the Donmar Warehouse over its sponsorship from Barclays and the bank’s links to Israel. Likewise, more than a thousand musicians, from Massive Attack to IDLES, boycotted festivals connected to investment firms that, like Barclays, have links to Israel. Elsewhere, authors pulled out of the Hay Festival because of sponsorship from Baillie Gifford and its failure to divest from fossil fuels. And the LGBTQ literature-focussed Polari Prize collapsed this year under pressure from trans activists angry at the long-listing of a gender-critical novelist.

This wave of cultural boycotts isn’t just about Israel, fossil fuels or gender identity. It is a symptom of something deeper: a climate of fear that now pervades the UK arts world. People now risk careers not for breaking the law, but for holding the wrong opinions. And too many institutions have abandoned the principle of impartiality that once defined public culture. Political activism has birthed a form of oppressive moral absolutism.

This is the world that Freedom in the Arts (FITA) was created to confront. Our report, Afraid to Speak Freely (based on the testimonies of nearly 500 artists and arts workers and published earlier this year), reveals an epidemic of self-censorship across the sector. People are watching what they say. Many fear professional exile for stepping outside the new ideological orthodoxy.

Whatever your politics, this is no way to run a cultural sector. The arts exist to bring people together through curiosity, beauty and challenge, not to divide them through ideological purity tests. Yet across the sector, institutions designed to champion freedom of expression have become hostage to its foes.

That’s why FITA is launching the UK’s first comprehensive research into boycotts, censorship and artistic freedom. This will consist of three confidential surveys (listed below) – one for artists, one for venues and one for agents and promoters – to map the real impact of political pressure on the arts. The aim is to uncover the truth about what’s really happening behind closed doors, so we can begin to fix it.

This is the first project of its kind in the UK, and it comes at a critical moment. Boycotts and cancellations are not harmless gestures. They destroy trust, livelihoods and creative communities. More than that – they punish the wrong people, usually those trying hardest to build bridges.

FITA’s mission is not partisan. We are not telling artists what to think, or audiences what to feel. We are simply standing up for freedom of expression. A freedom that belongs to everyone, and which the law ought to protect. Our goal is to rebuild confidence and fairness in a sector that has lost both.

The surveys are open until 6 December and mark the next step in that mission. They will help us develop a practical ‘Art Without Fear Toolkit’ – a set of legal, ethical and managerial resources to help artists and organisations navigate this new, overly politicised environment. The toolkit will include decision trees, sample policies and communication templates designed to support courage over compliance. We want the arts to be brave again. That means protecting dissenting voices instead of silencing them.

Once lost, cultural freedom is hard to recover. FITA is committed to ensuring that the next generation of artists inherit a sector governed by curiosity and courage – not fear and faction.

FITA’s three short, confidential surveys (all responses are anonymous) look at artistic freedom across the sector. You can find the survey for artists here, the survey for venues here and the survey for agents and managers here.

Rosie Kay is a choreographer and co-founder of Freedom in the Arts. You can read the Afraid to Speak Freely report here.