The New Boycott Crisis
"The real loss is the work that was never made and never seen."
A 40-page study of how a new logic — pre-emptive, internal, defensive — has come to govern programming decisions across the UK arts sector. Drawn from 194 sector workers, 45 in-depth interviews, and a senior leaders' roundtable.
Download the full reportExecutive summary
Something has gone wrong in the arts.
Not at the margins, not in isolated incidents, but structurally — in the way decisions are made about who gets to create, perform, exhibit, publish and be heard. An ecology that was once built on talent, artistic judgement, meritocracy and creative risk has been gradually displaced by a different dynamic: fear, informal or direct sanctions, quiet cancellations, the normalisation of silence, the avoidance or subversion of due process and formal procedures, a heightened sense of anxiety about reputational risk, safeguarding and safety.
The New Boycott Crisis documents the devastating role cultural boycotts are playing in shaping the arts ecology today. The determining question is no longer "Is this good work?" It has been replaced by "What will happen if we programme this content or this artist?"
What this report is
This report, produced by Freedom in the Arts, builds on the findings of Afraid To Speak Freely (May 2025). Drawing on surveys and in-depth interviews with artists, venue leaders, agents, managers and promoters, it documents what we call the new boycott crisis: 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.
Although this crisis predates the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, it has escalated sharply since, with sporadic pressure morphing into a systemic force that is threatening careers and the very business models sustaining the sector.
Impact on artists
The damage of the boycott crisis falls heavily on individual artists, who 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.
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza, Jewish artists are experiencing a wave of boycotts. Exclusion may be triggered not by anything they have said or done but by their identity itself. Artists report severe psychological harm, self-censorship, cultural erasure, loss of income and, in several cases, symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress. Gender-critical artists experience parallel mechanisms of exclusion on the grounds that their belief in the immutability of sex has been perceived as being ipso facto transphobic.
Exclusion triggered not by anything they have said or done — but by their identity itself.
Impact on venues and institutions
Venues — festivals, theatres, comedy clubs, literary organisations — are where programming decisions are made, or, more precisely, where they fail to be made. The defining pattern is not venues facing protests and capitulating, but 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. The artistic mission is being subordinated to survival, with programming driven by what is "safe" rather than what is excellent.
The cascade effect: agents, managers and the ecosystem
Agents, managers and promoters are the connective tissue of the arts and have become the sector's primary shock absorbers. This report reveals that boycott pressure cascades laterally through the ecosystem, with each capitulation making the next target more vulnerable.
Intermediaries are increasingly forced to mediate antisemitism and belief-based discrimination on behalf of institutions, advising Jewish and gender-critical artists to conceal their identities, avoid certain venues and remain silent — turning self-censorship into a professional service delivered under duress.
Key findings
The New Boycott Crisis identifies five critical dynamics.
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i.
Appeasement does not work.
Institutions that capitulate do not purchase peace but permanent vulnerability, with each concession inviting further demands.
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ii.
Resistance can succeed.
In some documented cases where venues held their ground, predicted protests did not materialise, audiences attended, and the controversy evaporated.
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iii.
A small number of internal actors hold disproportionate power.
Staff complaints, not audience boycotts, trigger most capitulations.
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iv.
EDI and values frameworks have been weaponised.
Political demands are reframed as diversity issues to access institutional complaint machinery.
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v.
Antisemitism is the dominant form of identity-based exclusion.
Documented across the data, operating at every level from overt to institutional, frequently unrecognised by the very frameworks designed to prevent discrimination.
Recommendations
Systemic change across four areas.
The report calls for action from boards, trustees, funders, governance bodies and policymakers.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Without intervention, the self-reinforcing dynamics documented in this report will intensify, and the arts sector's claim to value diversity will be exposed as hollow: diversity of identity without diversity of thought.