The Metropolitan Police reviewed a post on X by Sarah Helm — author of *Gaza: The Long Road to Destruction* and wife of the UK government's national security adviser — after she wrote, per BBC coverage cited by The Mary Sue, "God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action."

On October 17, the Met decided no further action was necessary. According to the World Socialist Web Site, the review came after demands by Zionist groups, and Downing Street responded that her views "do not represent the government in any capacity."

The case shows how writers unconnected to Rooney's financial decisions are now being swept into scrutiny.

Rooney is not a marginal figure. The World Socialist Web Site reports that *Normal People* has sold more than a million copies in the UK alone and that her titles accounted for just over 10 percent of UK money spent on Faber books last year — nearly 5 percent even without a new publication.

Faber said UK legislation created "circumstances where Faber cannot pass on UK earnings to Sally Rooney for her work," calling selling a writer's work without passing on earnings "an unconscionable situation for a publisher," and agreed with the author to stop supplying her work in the UK in any format.

Index on Censorship's Jemimah Steinfeld told the WSWS the proscription now infringes "our freedom to read."

Rooney pledged last year to donate her UK royalties and earnings to Palestine Action after the group was proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. Providing financial support to a proscribed group can carry up to 14 years in prison, both outlets note.

She wrote in The Irish Times that "if this makes me a 'supporter of terror' under UK law, so be it," and after the withdrawal stated: "I have made every effort to be honest with the public about my beliefs and intentions, and I am wholly prepared to accept the consequences."

The World Socialist Web Site reports she also skipped a London awards trip in September 2025 over arrest fears and warned in a High Court witness statement last November that her books could disappear from British shops.

The legal battle is unresolved and escalating. The World Socialist Web Site reports the High Court ruled the proscription unlawful and disproportionate in February 2026, but the Court of Appeal reinstated the ban in June, and the case reaches Britain's highest court next month.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk urged the government to reconsider, calling the ban "appears disproportionate and unnecessary," and Amnesty International UK says the legal framework is deeply flawed, The Mary Sue reports. Nearly 4,000 people have been arrested, most for holding placards.

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori told the WSWS that Rooney being unable to publish in the UK "marks a new low."

Booksellers may sell remaining stock, but as the World Socialist Web Site puts it, this is effectively a ban: no future UK royalties, no new UK publication, and no UK funds left for Rooney to donate. Faber says it remains "the proud publisher of her remarkable body of work" in other territories.

The World Socialist Web Site argues the threat will extend to other prominent cultural figures who speak out, while The Mary Sue frames the moment as a difficult intersection of literature and law in which publishers must now weigh the risks of distributing work by authors who support banned groups.

Rooney, for her part, appears to accept the outcome as the price of her convictions.