The acclaimed authors who supported protests that forced the corporate world's most generous sponsor of book festivals to withdraw its largesse should “hang their heads in shameâ€, an outgoing director has claimed.
Alistair Moffat, the writer who founded the Borders Book Festival, said the “idiot†group that organised a boycott of festivals sponsored by the investment firm Baillie Gifford had done “terrible damageâ€.
The protest group, Fossil Free Books, should be “ashamed of themselvesâ€, Moffat said, adding: “They have, of course, disappeared, and nobody hears from them.â€
In an article for The Scotsman, Moffat continued: “But the people like Robert Macfarlane and Ali Smith and Zadie Smith who supported them ought to hang their heads in shame, frankly, because they did tremendous damage to the book festival sector, tremendous damage.
“The whole thing was so stupid and ill thought through. Baillie Gifford had been exemplary sponsors. They are terrific, and we miss them very much.Â
“I think many of the [company] partners were very disappointed, because they wanted to be involved in and help in that sector, particularly with young people. I thought [what happened] was cultural vandalism.â€
Three years ago Ali Smith, the Scottish novelist, was one of the first to support calls for a boycott of Edinburgh's book festival unless its prime sponsor, Baillie Gifford, produced an exit strategy from its hydrocarbon investments.
The boycott threat by Fossil Free Books snowballed, and demands expanded to include Baillie Gifford ending any investments in companies with interests in Israel.
Zadie Smith, Robert Macfarlane, George Monbiot and Katherine Rundell were among scores of writers who called on Baillie Gifford to divest.
The Labour MP Dawn Butler, Nish Kumar, the comedian, and the singer Charlotte Church also pulled out of planned appearances at the 2024 Hay Festival.
The festival in Wales became the first to drop Baillie Gifford as a partner, followed by the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Borders Book Festival.
Baillie Gifford subsequently withdrew its financial support from a further seven organisations including the Cheltenham Literature Festival, which is sponsored by The Times and The Sunday Times.
It still sponsors the self-titled leading non-fiction prize in Britain as well as Edinburgh's International Festival and the Fringe.
Moffat, who founded the Borders Book Festival in 2004, said it had been unable to find a single corporate sponsor to replace Baillie Gifford.
“We're in a situation where, with everything that's happening in the Middle East, the economy is not in great shape and that has an impact directly on companies' willingness to sponsor things. We do well with sponsorship, but not as well as we used to, because Baillie Gifford did contribute a lot of money,†he wrote.
“I took the view that the public funding and indeed commercial sponsorship was not likely to expand significantly. What we have done is to plug the gap with individuals, very generous, high net worth individuals who have become supporters and benefactors of the festival. That's how we've done it. Because if you seek public funding to shore that up, you're going to be disappointed, because there's not much of it around.â€
Most of the authors who signed the Fossil Free Books letter demanding Baillie Gifford's divestments did still attend festivals, including Macfarlane and Monbiot.
Monbiot told the Hay Festival in 2024, hours before it dropped Baillie Gifford as a partner, that although he supported the protesters' aims, the annual literary event was also a “good causeâ€.
Baillie Gifford has previously stated that only 2 per cent of the funds it managed were in the fossil fuel sector — compared with an asset management sector average of 11 per cent. The company said it was “unrealistic†to demand a cut to all connections with the fossil fuel industry.
Richard Flanagan, the Australian author, said he would not collect his £50,000 cheque after winning the Baillie Gifford prize in 2024 for his book Question 7.
Flanagan, the only winner of the non-fiction prize also to have won the Booker prize for fiction — for The Narrow Road to the Deep North in 2014 — said at the award ceremony in November 2024 that he would not accept his prize until Baillie Gifford had revealed an exit strategy from its hydrocarbon investments.
