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Baillie Gifford has cancelled all of its remaining sponsorship offers with literary festivals after protests over its hyperlinks to Israel and fossil gas firms.
The funding administration agency refused to substantiate that it had taken the choice, however the Guardian has heard from Cambridge, Stratford, Wigtown and Henley literary festivals that the corporate had determined to not proceed its partnership with them.
Cheltenham literary competition, which introduced the tip of its partnership with Baillie Gifford on Wednesday, additionally indicated that the choice had come from Baillie Gifford.
The Borders e-book competition introduced this week that it had determined to finish Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship after this 12 months’s occasion. Wimbledon BookFest has confirmed that its sponsorship from the agency will likely be ending after eight years, however it didn’t disclose whether or not the choice got here from competition organisers or Baillie Gifford.
The transfer comes after mounting stress from the marketing campaign group Fossil Free Books (FFB), which has known as on the corporate to stop its investments within the fossil gas trade and likewise demanded it divest from firms linked to Israel, because it believes “solidarity with Palestine and local weather justice are inextricably linked”.
Final month, the Hay competition organisers took the choice themselves to finish Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship, whereas the Edinburgh worldwide competition organisers and the asset supervisor “collectively agreed” to terminate theirs.
Whereas because of this the corporate now not sponsors any literary festivals, it stays the sponsor of the UK’s most prestigious prize for nonfiction, the Baillie Gifford prize.
“The Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction has fortunately partnered with Baillie Gifford since 2016,” a spokesperson from the prize mentioned. “Now we have all the time discovered them to be collaborative, beneficiant and clear about their investments. They’re contracted to sponsor the prize till the tip of 2025 and we’re absolutely dedicated to that relationship.”
Final month, greater than 700 writers and publishing trade professionals signed an open letter organised by FFB, calling on Baillie Gifford to divest from fossil fuels and stop its hyperlinks to Israel.
FFB mentioned in an announcement: “Over the past 18 months, analysis by a number of human rights NGOs has proven that Baillie Gifford holds investments value billions in fossil gas firms and firms with hyperlinks to Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide.
“Our analysis into Baillie Gifford’s investments is ongoing and we count on to launch extra information concerning the agency’s problematic investments within the coming days.”
The marketing campaign group added that whereas it was “inspired that an establishment with such problematic investments will now not play a task within the UK literary scene”, its “major demand has all the time been for Baillie Gifford to divest”.
“FFB will proceed to organise – alongside the broader divestment motion – till Baillie Gifford lives as much as its declare to be a ‘accountable investor’ by divesting from fossil fuels and firms related to human rights abuses,” the assertion mentioned.
The Hay competition was the primary to drag out of its sponsorship take care of the agency, after a variety of these scheduled to look on the 2024 occasion, together with the Labour MP Daybreak Butler, the singer Charlotte Church and the comic Nish Kumar pulled out in solidarity with FFB. Two days into the competition, Hay introduced its choice to withdraw from the sponsorship deal.
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“Our first precedence is to our viewers and our artists,” Hay’s chief govt, Julie Finch, mentioned on the time. “Above all else, we should protect the liberty of our phases and areas for open debate and dialogue, the place audiences can hear a spread of views.”
The Edinburgh worldwide competition introduced its choice the week after, with Jenny Niven, the e-book competition’s director, saying it had been taken “with nice remorse” and attributable to “insupportable” stress on her staff, reasonably than out of settlement with FFB’s stance. She mentioned she didn’t imagine “undermining the long-term way forward for charitable organisations” was “the suitable approach to result in change”.
Baillie Gifford has not commented on any of the sponsorship withdrawals since Edinburgh’s, when Nick Thomas, a companion at Baillie Gifford, mentioned the agency’s sponsorship of the competition, which had been in place since 2004, “was rooted in our shared curiosity in making Edinburgh a thriving and culturally vibrant place to dwell and work”.
“We maintain the activists squarely chargeable for the inhibiting impact their motion could have on funding for the humanities on this nation,” Thomas added.
“The assertion that now we have important quantities of cash within the occupied Palestinian territories is offensively deceptive. Baillie Gifford is a big investor in a number of multinational know-how firms, together with Amazon, Nvidia and Meta. Demanding divestment from these world firms, utilized by thousands and thousands of individuals around the globe, is unreasonable and serves no goal. A lot as it will be unreasonable to demand authors boycott Instagram or cease promoting books on Amazon.”
Baillie Gifford was additionally not a “important fossil gas investor”, Thomas mentioned. “Solely 2% of our purchasers’ cash is invested in firms with some enterprise associated to fossil fuels. We make investments much more in firms serving to drive the transition to scrub power.”
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