The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts has crumbled under the weight of boycott pressure, pulling the plug on its longstanding sponsorship deal with a company over its investments in fossil fuels and Israel. The Mailhas the story.
The literary festival in Wales, which is taking place until June 2nd, cut ties with investment management firm Baillie Gifford “in light of claims raised by campaigners and intense pressure on artists to withdraw”.
Noted figures including comedian Nish Kumar, singer Charlotte Church and Labour MP Dawn Butler have all pulled out of the event.
It comes after the campaign group Fossil Free Books called upon festival sponsor, Baillie Gifford, to “divest from the fossil fuel industry”.
It claimed in a statement that the company “currently has between £2.5-5 billion invested in the fossil fuel industry and nearly £10 billion invested in companies with direct or indirect links to Israel’s defence, tech and cybersecurity industries”. …
Julie Finch, Chief Executive of Hay Festival Global, said in a statement that the charity’s first priority is “our audience and our artists”.
Stand-up comic Kumar, 38, announced his withdrawal when he posted a statement from campaign leaders, Fossil Free Books, on X, and said dropping out “was the right decision for me”.
Sad to say that I will be pulling out of Hay to support this campaign. Love the festival and the people that work in it, but this was the right decision for me. https://t.co/cXO6InzPJi
In another statement to social media, Church, 38, who is a pro-Palestinian campaigner, said she was boycotting and not attending the festival “in protest of the artwashing and greenwashing that is apparent in this sponsorship”. …
I’m scheduled in to talk at the Hay Festival with the brilliant Mary Loudon this weekend.
However, due to the continuing sponsorship of the festival by asset manager Baillie Gifford, I will be boycotting and not attending
— Charlotte Church (@charlottechurch) May 23, 2024
A spokesperson for Baillie Gifford said: “The suggestion that Baillie Gifford is a large investor in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is seriously misleading.” …
The statement said the companies the firm has invested in, which have commercial dealings with the state of Israel, have not violated any laws in doing business with the country.
The statement continued: “We are not a significant fossil fuel investor. Only 2% of our clients’ money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels.”
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Who are the people who are boycotting the event and why are do they matter?
AJPotts
10 months ago
Every aspect of life has now become politicised. Activities that used to unite those with different political views have become battlefields on which political wars are prosecuted. Division and hatred are the inevitable consequences. Civil war gets ever closer.
Ron Smith
10 months ago
That festival is not far from me and I know Hay on Wye well. Careful swimming near the bridge in Hay, there is known to be a hole that you can disappear down!
I have also been to the festival a couple of times; it is a cesspit of remainers!
soundofreason
10 months ago
I hope Hay Festival runs out of money soon and has to downsize.
Charlotte Church, Nish Kumar? Singer and comedian? Now that is funny. Charlotte Church is not too far above pond life in the intellect department, Nish is little more than a bigot. If he is on the Guardians top 50 comedians then there is no way he is funny. Dawn Butler? Barely capable of thought. If breathing required 2 brain cells she would suffocate. No loss at all with any of them.
Ms Church blamed the climate change for the civil war in Syria, so she has form.
Mogwai
10 months ago
Anybody who supports terrorism is a nasty piece of treacherous scum and should sling their hooks to a Muslim country, where I’m sure they’d be much more suited. I’d probably avoid Syria though. A lot of actual genocide taken place over that way.
I guess these Hay Festival idiots aren’t fans of the history type of books, then. Too many facts that contradict their indoctrinated and addled antisemite little brains;
”Jewish “Nakba” – 850,000 Jews in MENA countries were forced out of their homes, were ethnically cleansed by mass pogroms, and synagogues burning, .. Those Jews didn’t get special UN refugee agency, not any “right of return”. And now some people are demanding they go back to… Poland.”
”Oh yes, I’m one of those Mizrahi Jews. We lost everything in Lebanon and our home was stolen by Palestinian refugees, and yet we’ve all moved on.” Gad Saad
Quite frankly I’d cut all ties with any festival, venue, company or anything else which is antisemitic. These dreadful people, such as Church, seem to have no idea what over a thousand butchered, raped, mutilated women, children and men looks like. They are all very aware what cultural appropriation of terrorist apparel looks like though.
People like Church are sick in the head. What kind of person are you when you condone and promote terrorists?
She is a deluded little sociopath. Remember when she abused Farage on Twitter stating “give me back my fuc@ing EU”.
Richard Austin
10 months ago
Much of this lunacy is down to the Football Association, followed by other sports, allowing politics into sport. When you have footballers kneeling down in homage to a drug fuelled lifelong criminal you know society is in serious trouble. Now it has flooded into a flaming book festival for heavens sakes!
What next, “No Jews Allowed” signs on libraries?
I never buy anything from stores run by people who hate Britain and who run around in grooming gangs. ——-Am I a racist? No, I just don’t jump into snake pits because someone told me all snakes are not poisonous.
Yes I ignore all RNLI adverts, or should I call them migrant taxi service.
RonniC
10 months ago
The Hay festival used to be brilliant until a few years ago when it was infested by the Woke. You only have to take a look at the featured speakers to see that anyone to the right of Mao can go and take a hike. Baillie Gifford should simply give the organisers the two fingers and give their dosh to worthier, non-politicised events. If there are any of course. As for Charlotte half-a-brain-cell Church …
CircusSpot
10 months ago
Meanwhile in the real world talented young adults cannot find work singing, dancing, acting or writing because the funding does not go to them.
I support the Arts but would never go to this type of Festival as it rewards the already well rewarded people and not those who need help.
Why does any company have to justify having anything remotely to do with fossil fuels? These fuels provide 80% of the world’s energy. Are these tyrannical leftist thugs going to terrorise everyone who has any dealings at all with energy sources that power virtually the entire world? They will sit there on their comfy couches with a laptop on their knee oblivious to the fact that without fossil fuels they would have no couch or laptop and they will likely have a house full of products manufactured in China, the biggest users of coal and the biggest CO2 emitters in the world. They are so dumb they cannot see how absurd they are.
I was just reading on the American newsletter ‘Morning Brew’ that the rise of AI data centres means the US is looking to opening up new gas and coal fired power stations to keep up with the demand for power.
@fossilfreebooks pic.twitter.com/ken3fwdbBx
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Who are the people who are boycotting the event and why are do they matter?
Every aspect of life has now become politicised. Activities that used to unite those with different political views have become battlefields on which political wars are prosecuted. Division and hatred are the inevitable consequences. Civil war gets ever closer.
That festival is not far from me and I know Hay on Wye well. Careful swimming near the bridge in Hay, there is known to be a hole that you can disappear down!
I have also been to the festival a couple of times; it is a cesspit of remainers!
I hope Hay Festival runs out of money soon and has to downsize.
Charlotte Church, Nish Kumar? Singer and comedian? Now that is funny. Charlotte Church is not too far above pond life in the intellect department, Nish is little more than a bigot. If he is on the Guardians top 50 comedians then there is no way he is funny. Dawn Butler? Barely capable of thought. If breathing required 2 brain cells she would suffocate. No loss at all with any of them.
Ms Church blamed the climate change for the civil war in Syria, so she has form.
Anybody who supports terrorism is a nasty piece of treacherous scum and should sling their hooks to a Muslim country, where I’m sure they’d be much more suited. I’d probably avoid Syria though. A lot of actual genocide taken place over that way.
I guess these Hay Festival idiots aren’t fans of the history type of books, then. Too many facts that contradict their indoctrinated and addled antisemite little brains;
”Jewish “Nakba” – 850,000 Jews in MENA countries were forced out of their homes, were ethnically cleansed by mass pogroms, and synagogues burning, .. Those Jews didn’t get special UN refugee agency, not any “right of return”. And now some people are demanding they go back to… Poland.”
”Oh yes, I’m one of those Mizrahi Jews. We lost everything in Lebanon and our home was stolen by Palestinian refugees, and yet we’ve all moved on.” Gad Saad
https://x.com/ImtiazMadmood/status/1790798687444078784
People without courage…
Quite frankly I’d cut all ties with any festival, venue, company or anything else which is antisemitic. These dreadful people, such as Church, seem to have no idea what over a thousand butchered, raped, mutilated women, children and men looks like. They are all very aware what cultural appropriation of terrorist apparel looks like though.
People like Church are sick in the head. What kind of person are you when you condone and promote terrorists?
She is a deluded little sociopath. Remember when she abused Farage on Twitter stating “give me back my fuc@ing EU”.
Much of this lunacy is down to the Football Association, followed by other sports, allowing politics into sport. When you have footballers kneeling down in homage to a drug fuelled lifelong criminal you know society is in serious trouble. Now it has flooded into a flaming book festival for heavens sakes!
What next, “No Jews Allowed” signs on libraries?
This cuts two ways.
We can boycott too and I do.
Don’t give your money to people who hate you.
I never buy anything from stores run by people who hate Britain and who run around in grooming gangs. ——-Am I a racist? No, I just don’t jump into snake pits because someone told me all snakes are not poisonous.
Yes I ignore all RNLI adverts, or should I call them migrant taxi service.
The Hay festival used to be brilliant until a few years ago when it was infested by the Woke. You only have to take a look at the featured speakers to see that anyone to the right of Mao can go and take a hike. Baillie Gifford should simply give the organisers the two fingers and give their dosh to worthier, non-politicised events. If there are any of course. As for Charlotte half-a-brain-cell Church …
Meanwhile in the real world talented young adults cannot find work singing, dancing, acting or writing because the funding does not go to them.
I support the Arts but would never go to this type of Festival as it rewards the already well rewarded people and not those who need help.
Suppose the Hay festival is normally stuffed to the rafters with luvvies so it is no surprise they capitulated to the Left.
Why does any company have to justify having anything remotely to do with fossil fuels? These fuels provide 80% of the world’s energy. Are these tyrannical leftist thugs going to terrorise everyone who has any dealings at all with energy sources that power virtually the entire world? They will sit there on their comfy couches with a laptop on their knee oblivious to the fact that without fossil fuels they would have no couch or laptop and they will likely have a house full of products manufactured in China, the biggest users of coal and the biggest CO2 emitters in the world. They are so dumb they cannot see how absurd they are.
I was just reading on the American newsletter ‘Morning Brew’ that the rise of AI data centres means the US is looking to opening up new gas and coal fired power stations to keep up with the demand for power.
“Oh dear, how sad, never mind”
Some lack backbone to stand up to bullies.