Britain bans Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur for opposing genocide

Britain welcomes apologists for genocide - and bars those who oppose it

Britain’s banning of the left-wing, pro-Palestinian American commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur marks another descent into authoritarianism.

Let us be clear about what has happened here. Both men have plainly been barred by the British government because of their opposition to the crime of crimes: that is, genocide, namely that perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people. That same genocide has been armed, excused and facilitated by Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

The West is now in the midst of the greatest assault on free speech since the McCarthyite witch-hunts of the 1950s. Then, Senator Joseph McCarthy led a campaign against supposed “Reds”. Today, it is opponents of Israel’s genocide who are being targeted: deplatformed, threatened, sacked, arrested - sometimes violently - imprisoned, and menaced with deportation.

In Britain, Labour has already proscribed the anti-genocide direct action movement Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, placing it on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda and ISIS. More than 3,200 people - many of them elderly - have been arrested for holding placards opposing genocide and supporting Palestine Action.

Meanwhile, protests against genocide have been demonised as “hate marches” and subjected to mounting legal curbs. Organisers have been dragged through the courts.

Freedom of speech in Britain is being curtailed in the service of a foreign state, Israel, which is committing genocide, alongside multiple other crimes.

Critique of that state is being - scandalously and dangerously - conflated with hatred of Jewish people.

Indeed, when Hasan Piker was allowed to enter the country last year and address the Oxford Union, he delivered a speech denouncing the evil of antisemitism. He described it, aptly, as “the canary in the coal mine of fascism.”

Now ask yourself this: what would happen if Piker and Uygur were US commentators who supported Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people?

What if they had declared, say, “I’m glad Israel has wiped Gaza from the face of the earth”; or “good on Israel for slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinians”; or “I hope Israel finishes what it started in Gaza”? Would they be barred from Britain? Would they be treated as a threat to public order?

Of course not. There would be no repercussions at all. After all, much of the British media supported drowning Gaza in blood, while our politicians armed the crime.

Then there is the red-carpet treatment afforded to Israeli politicians drenched in Palestinian blood.

Take Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar. He has variously declared: “Gaza must be smaller at the end of the war”; “whoever starts a war against Israel must lose territory”; and “Gaza in its previous form has no future.” He visited Britain for a private meeting with then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy in April 2025.

Or take Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who declared in October 2023: “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.”

That statement, rightly cited by South Africa in its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, was a chilling incitement against an entire people.

Herzog visited Britain in September 2025, meeting Keir Starmer in Downing Street.

Complicit in genocide? Come on in, you are honoured guests. Oppose genocide? Your presence is “not conducive to the public good.”

Predictably, right-wing extremists are now denouncing opposition to the Piker and Uygur bans as hypocritical, because far-right commentators were also banned from entering the UK to attend Tommy Robinson’s far-right protest last month.

There is no comparison here - at all.

Take one of those banned far-right commentators, Valentina Gomez. She has declared Black Americans can ‘GTFO’ the country, referred to Muslims en masse as ‘rapists’ and ‘terrorists’, demanded they ‘fuck off’ to Muslim nations, and declared that Islam was “the sword that the left is using to destroy Christian nations.”

That is overt racist hate speech. It is beyond despicable to compare opposition to Israel and its crimes with this.

That said, I do not support the banning of those far-right commentators either. I’ve previously opposed the jailing of people over disgusting, racist comments made during the anti-Muslim riots - indeed, attempted pogroms - of August 2024. I opposed the banning of far-right marches. I even opposed the jailing of the far-right extremist who beat me up on my birthday (he was jailed for 2 years and 8 months).

That is partly because state repression is no solution to political problems. But it is also because, once authoritarian precedents are set, it is inevitably the left that suffers most.

The Conservatives passed the Public Order Act 1936, supposedly aimed at Oswald Mosley’s fascist Blackshirts. In practice, it was repeatedly turned against the left. This is how repressive state power works.

There is currently every possibility of Nigel Farage becoming prime minister after the next general election. He may or may not the support of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives, but both are now committed to right-wing authoritarianism - from assaults on the judiciary to bans on protest. They will build on the authoritarian inheritance delivered to them by both Labour and the Tories.

A final point: authoritarianism is always facilitated by cowardice.

Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur were both due to speak at SXSW London, a tech, business, music and film festival. SXSW released a statement declaring that “Decisions on entry to the U.K. are a matter for the Home Office and the individuals concerned.”

Piker has understandably called them “actual fucking losers”, committing never to work with them again. Ash Sarker - who was due to chair the event - has pulled out, and call for other speakers and chairs to do the same. We should all boycott SXSW.

You can pre-order my new book THE FALL OF THE WEST now…