Freedom of expression in the arts

Approximate read time: 10 minutes

The House of Lords is scheduled to consider the following question for short debate on 9 July 2026:

Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-affiliated) to ask His Majesty’s government what assessment they have made of the Freedom in the Arts report ‘The new boycott crisis’, published in February 2026, and of the impact on artistic freedom of contemporary cultural boycotts.

1. Freedom in the Arts report

Freedom in the Arts (FITA) is an organisation focused on freedom of expression across arts and culture.^[1] It also offers support and guidance to those in the arts sector facing “boycotts, campaigns and political pressure”.^[2]

FITA’s report, ‘The new boycott crisis’, sets out its concerns about art boycotts or campaigns in the sector. It claims there is:

An interconnected web of coercive practices—cancellation, deplatforming, institutional exclusion, professional ostracism, workplace bullying, funding compromises, compelled political declarations, harassment and reputational destruction—that collectively polices the boundaries of acceptable thought, association, expression and programming within the arts.^[3]

It has based its findings on surveys and interviews with stakeholders.^[4] On this, it said:

We do not claim that these findings are statistically representative of the entire arts and cultural sector. Rather, the combination of structured survey data, extended qualitative interviews and cross-sector roundtable discussion provides a detailed, multi-layered investigation into how boycott pressures are operating across different parts of the sector.^[5]

The report also claims the situation has worsened since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

The report contains chapters on the situation in the context of artists, venues and promoters, and on what should be done about the issue. For example, in terms of the impact on artists, it states:

[They are] overwhelmingly the people with the least institutional power to resist it. Most are freelancers, financially precarious and dependent on networks of reputation and goodwill. The report documents a pattern of silent boycotts: opportunities drying up, invitations ceasing, communications going unanswered, and projects stalling indefinitely—all without formal explanation or documentation.

[…]

Artists report severe psychological harm, self-censorship, cultural erasure, loss of income and, in several cases, symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress.^[6]

It claims that some instances are based on the identity of the artists or their views (for example, views on gender issues).

Regarding venues, the report states:^[7]

The defining pattern is not venues facing protests and capitulating but anticipatory compliance: pre-emptive cancellation driven by fear of what might happen rather than response to what has happened. Critically, the pressure overwhelmingly originates from inside organisations—staff complaints, staff networks, advisory bodies—rather than from audiences. “Safety” language is weaponised to reframe political objections as welfare concerns, triggering HR processes ill-equipped to distinguish between genuine safeguarding and ideological pressure. Venues may end up breaching contractual obligations, equality law and their own governance frameworks, often without recognising that they are doing so.^[8]

The report lists five key findings applying to the issues set out above:^[9]

• “appeasement does not work”; it claims that this just leads to increasing issues further down the line
• “resistance can succeed”; it said feared protests and controversy were often not as bad as predicted
• internal actors (such as complaints from staff) often hold disproportionate power
• equality, diversity and inclusion and values frameworks “have been weaponised”
• FITA claimed antisemitism was the “dominant form of identity-based exclusion” according to its findings

To address these issues, the report calls for systemic change across four areas:

• Governance reform: Boards need training for crises, with legal and communications expertise, and should be required to adopt explicit statements of artistic purpose and a commitment to protect freedom of expression.
• Legal clarity: The sector urgently needs accessible guidance on equality law, contractual obligations and the legal thresholds for exclusion and cancellation, available at the point of crisis rather than after the damage is done.
• Sector coordination: Cross-sectoral networks of organisations committed to resisting boycott logic and sharing resources are essential to transform the incentive structure from compliance to resistance.
• Collective action: The boycott crisis is at its core a crisis of collective action failure—the silent majority must be given mechanisms for collective expression and protection for individual expression.^[10]

2. Government and Arts Council England statements

In its manifesto, Labour committed to improving access to the arts, linking it to growth across the UK. It also said:

Labour will implement our creative industries sector plan as part of our industrial strategy, creating good jobs and accelerating growth in film, music, gaming, and other creative sectors. We will work constructively with the BBC and our other public service broadcasters so they continue to inform, educate and entertain people, and support the creative economy by commissioning distinctively British content.^[11]

The creative industries sector plan was published by the government in June 2025.^[12] It said the government would support arts through a range of government funding measures, including grants and tax reliefs.

In addition, the government said in the report that it would seek to “increase the productivity, resilience and diversity of the creative workforce, including creative freelancers, to create the conditions for sustained economic growth”.^[13] As part of this, it said it would ensure:

[The industry continues] to tackle bullying, harassment and discrimination, including through strong, cross-industry support for the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA), which will support priority sub-sectors film and TV, music and theatre during its initial stage before rolling out more widely, ensuring people can speak up without fear and supporting diversity within the sector.^[14]

The government also commissioned a review of Arts Council England (ACE), the national agency for arts and culture and a key source of investment, by Baroness Hodge of Barking (Labour). Her report’s recommendations included that the government must maintain and strengthen the principle of arm’s length decision-making for the arts at “all levels of government to ensure that arts funding is protected from politicisation and the Arts Council must rigorously uphold that principle”.^[15] She continued:

There have been attempts to exert more political control over ACE decisions in recent years and this has to stop. The Arts Council must remain free from political interference. This matters. It ensures that artistic freedom is protected, that creativity is not stifled and that public trust is maintained. Political interference, even by those with the best of intentions, could lead to political bias, or even censorship.^[16]

This recommendation was accepted by the government. In its response to Baroness Hodge’s report, the government acknowledged this was important so that:

Citizens will have the confidence that the Arts Council is a home for diversity of ideas and freedom of expression. Artists and organisations across England will be able to act with independence and in the knowledge that individual funding decisions are free from political interference.^[17]

The government said “it would maintain a strong, politically-impartial and independent Arts Council that remains a champion for freedom of expression”.^[18] It said it would work with ACE on how the arm’s length principle should function.

In response to a question on this issue in February 2026, Ian Murray, the minister for creative industries, media and arts, stated:

The government is committed to freedom of speech, including in the cultural sector, and the secretary of state has expressed an unequivocal ambition that the era of the government stoking “culture wars” should be over. The government is clear that whilst it is right that protections from discrimination exist, this does not prohibit people from expressing their views, opinions or beliefs which are also protected. However, it is important to protect people from illegal discrimination, harassment, and hate speech.

ACE makes decisions about which organisations and projects to fund independently of government and ministers, which means there is no question of any political involvement in arts funding decisions. ACE supports freedom of speech within the limits of the law and recognises the expression of different beliefs as protected under the Equality Act 2010. ACE staff receive training on these matters and are guided by their dignity at work policy.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport expects all ACE staff to uphold the Nolan principles, which includes objectivity. That principle notes that holders of public office must act and make decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias. ACE also supports the rights of artists and cultural organisations to express themselves freely, including through work that is challenging, provocative, or political. They have also published guidance aimed at supporting cultural organisations in managing complex situations that might arise from presenting challenging work, which is available on their website.^[19]

In an oral evidence session with the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee in April 2026 both Darren Henley, ACE chief executive and Sir Nicholas Serota, ACE chair referred to the importance of freedom of expression. Darren Henley said:

[Freedom of expression has to] be at the heart of it. It has to be totally there, because if it is not there you become censors. We are not there to be censors. The only breach would be illegality.^[20]

Sir Nicholas then stated:

Freedom of expression is absolutely fundamental. Individual companies and the boards take responsibility for what they put on stage or perform, or include in a show. ACE does not seek to intervene. It seeks to ensure that a wide variety of views, and a full range of art and artists, is present in the culture.^[21]

They were also asked questions about supporting freedom of expression and tackling cancellations of artists due to antisemitism, faith or racism. Darren Henley responded as follows:

Q109 Dr Rupa Huq (Labour) The principles of diversity, inclusion and access are strongly endorsed in the review. How is ACE supporting this in a way that is more than just a tick-box exercise for compliance reasons while supporting artistic freedom?

Darren Henley: From my point of view, it is never going to be a tick-box exercise. It has to be something that is really important. We have to reflect the way this country looks and feels everywhere. Everybody’s creativity is as important as each other’s and should be at the table. In terms of protected characteristics, our last portfolio saw a massive increase in that. I am absolutely determined it will not be a high watermark; we need to build on that. We have a journey to go on with all protected characteristics. They are really important.

There is a moral reason for doing it. There is a creative reason for doing it as well. When you bring different people with different life journeys and different experiences together, that is when you get the creative spark. That is when you get the point of difference. You do not want to have homogeneity all the way through. You want to have all those stories equally valid and equally told at the table. That is part of our national story.

Q110 Dr Huq: Margaret Hodge said that quite often it feels a bit inconsistent and tokenistic. We have also had the Antisemitism Policy Trust saying that there are Jewish artists being cancelled. We have seen in Adelaide Writers’ Week Palestinian people being cancelled. How do you withstand pressure?

Darren Henley: Antisemitism is abhorrent and unacceptable.

Q111 Dr Huq: Is there a specific policy that you have?

Darren Henley: We absolutely have a policy on all forms of racism. A person of any faith or ethnicity should be able to be an audience member and a worker in all our organisations. It is absolutely the case. Any other form of racism should not be allowed. We state that. We will be strengthening that. It is something that is really important. That is not acceptable.^[22]

3. Read more

• House of Lords Library, ‘Funding for the arts’, 22 May 2026
• House of Lords, ‘Oral question: Cultural sector: Freedom of speech’, 8 January 2025, cols 709–12
• Britannica, ‘Cancel Culture: Is cancel culture good for society?’, accessed 26 June 2026
• Museums Association, ‘Culture professionals ‘afraid to speak freely’’, 14 May 2025
• Spectator (£), ‘Róisín Murphy and the corrosiveness of cancel culture in the arts’, 29 April 2026
• Pippa Norris, ‘Cancel culture: Myth or reality?’, Political Studies, 2021

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Photo by Paolo Chiabrando on Unsplash