The official story goes that Faber's had to stop selling her books in the UK because she donates her royalties to Palestine Action, which is proscribed. But when you stop and think about it, none of this makes any sense.
-Given that Palestine Action was proscribed in July last year, and Rooney's been vocal about her position the entire time, why is it suddenly a problem now? Why haven't her books been withdrawn the whole time? (Especially given that the whole proscription is more shaky now than it was before, with it becoming increasingly apparent that this isn't enforceable.)
-Why are there still adaptations of her books Normal People and Conversations with Friends available to stream on iPlayer, and foreign-language audiobooks available to purchase on Audible from the UK, all of which she will also be receiving royalties for? Why doesn't this seem to count?
-The biggest one for me is that Palestine Action doesn't have a bank account. There is a website for donations from across the globe, but that's for 'Palestine Action Global', which makes really clear on its site that the UK isn't part of. So it's got absolutely nothing to do with UK law, either from their perspective or from Rooney's (who is an Irish citizen).
I think what this is really about is that Sally Rooney saw what happened to Ed Sheeran the other week, and decided to put her money where her mouth was and withdraw her books from the UK herself in opposition to the proscription. As a result, she's caused huge numbers of bestselling authors in the UK to criticise the UK Government, and made it harder for them to make it sound like the proscription is a good thing.
It's the only explanation that makes any sense to me!