Freedom in the Arts Parliamentary Launch
Churchill Room, Palace of Westminster
27 April 2026
Neil Blair’s closing remarks at the Freedom in the Arts parliamentary launch
Closing the evening at the parliamentary launch of The New Boycott Crisis and the Art Beyond Boycott Toolkit, Neil Blair thanked the speakers, contributors and organisers, and reflected on why freedom of expression remains essential to both the arts and the health of public life.
Short biography
Neil Blair is literary agent and film producer, and the founding partner of The Blair Partnership. One of the most respected figures in the publishing and creative industries, he has long worked at the intersection of storytelling, cultural leadership and public life, and has been a valued supporter of Freedom in the Arts.
Churchill Room, Palace of Westminster, 27 April 2026
Following speeches from Nigel Huddleston MP, Rosie Kay, Josh Breslaw, Mark Tughan and Róisín Murphy, Neil Blair closed the parliamentary launch with warm and generous thanks, while underlining the wider significance of the evening: that without freedom of expression, the arts lose something essential and society loses one of its most vital mirrors.
The Full Speech Link HERE
Thank you all very much for coming this evening, and in particular thank you to the Members of Parliament and peers who have joined us, and to everyone here from across public life and the cultural sector.
My thanks to Josh Breslaw for sharing his experience with us so generously. Testimony like yours has been invaluable in helping us understand the real impact of these pressures on artists’ lives and work.
Thank you also to Mark Tughan for bringing the perspective of commercial and organisational leadership in such a difficult landscape, and for showing why practical support and institutional confidence matter so much.
Róisín — thank you for such a powerful contribution this evening, and especially for reminding us how central freedom of expression is to artistic life itself.
I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to all those who contributed to this report. This work exists because people were willing to speak honestly about what they have encountered, often at real personal and professional cost.
My thanks go to Rosie Kay and Denise Fahmy, the founders of Freedom in the Arts, and to Professor Jo Phoenix of the University of Reading, co-author and key collaborator on this report. Thank you for the courage, clarity and persistence with which you have exposed the structural mechanism of boycotts, and particularly the growing antisemitism in the arts. You’ve turned difficult experience into something constructive and lasting.
And finally, a huge thank you to Nigel Huddleston MP for hosting this event and for recognising that the issues raised in The New Boycott Crisis deserve serious and thoughtful attention.
Without freedom of expression, the arts lose something essential, and society loses one of its most vital mirrors.
Standing here in Parliament this evening, thanks to the work of Freedom in the Arts, I think we can look ahead with real purpose: towards a healthier cultural landscape, in which artists can speak freely, institutions can act with confidence, and society can learn once again to think more honestly and humanely.
Thank you all.
