Contemporary Cultural Boycotts

Lord Polak Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for introducing the debate, which is of course timely. I thank Freedom of the Arts for this report, but I thank in particular the artists, the performers and the writers who found the courage to describe what has been happening to them. Speaking out is never easy when doing so may cost you your next role.

This report does not allege formal censorship. It describes something quieter and in some ways more sinister and more troubling. It calls it “the silent boycott”. Opportunities simply disappear. Invitations are quietly withdrawn. Projects never quite materialise. Emails are left unanswered. Careers stall not for a want of talent but because of an artist’s Jewish identity or assumptions made about it.

This has become something that institutions would rather manage than defend. The report is candid about the cause. Institutions are increasingly driven by fear: fear of a social media pile-on, fear of activist pressure, fear of internal disputes or fear of a controversy that has not even happened yet. Decisions are being taken pre-emptively before a single complaint is even made. This is not caution. Once an institution starts programming to avoid a row rather than to reward excellence, artistic freedom does not stay intact for long.

Let me be clear about what this debate is not. It is not about shielding anyone from criticism or closing down legitimate political debate, including robust arguments on the Middle East. Freedom of expression must include the freedom to criticise the Government of Israel, but criticism of a Government can never justify the exclusion of an individual because he or she is Jewish. That distinction is fundamental and this report finds, again and again, that it is being lost. Jewish identity itself is increasingly treated as politically contentious, regardless of what the work in question actually says, and none of this happens in isolation. The Community Security Trust recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents just last year, one of the highest totals it has ever logged. The arts do not sit apart from that reality. They are part of it and, because they help shape how the country talks to itself, they carry a greater responsibility to get this right, not a lesser one.

Cultural boycotts have a long and unhappy history and they rarely open a conversation. More often, they close one down, narrowing perspectives and impoverishing the very culture they claim to defend. What has always made British culture strong is confidence: the confidence that ideas can be debated, that disagreement can be aired and that audiences can be trusted to make up their own minds. That confidence should not now be allowed to give way to fear.

I ask the Minister three things. Will the Government make clear to the Arts Council of England that informal exclusion of Jewish artists is antisemitism, not just discrimination? What support will the Government give publicly funded institutions to withstand pressure campaigns? Will the Government tie funding to proof that programming decisions are made on merit, not on fear? Our arts should be open to all. They should reward talent and defend freedom, and they should never become places where an artist has to conceal who he or she is to work.

I conclude with a tribute and a plea—a tribute to a British icon, my friend Maureen Lipman. A couple of weeks ago, I saw her perform brilliantly as “Allegra” in Windsor; it is opening tonight at the Harold Pinter Theatre, but activists have stood outside the theatre that she is playing with leaflets stating “Maureen Lipman supports genocide”. My plea to the Minister is this: is she aware of this, and is it right that Maureen, a proud Jew, has been forced to hire security guards because she is being targeted by anti-Israel activists?