Winston Marshall and Piers Morgan: a tale of two cancelled people

Marshall did not read or endorse anything unpopular with the general public, just what’s outside the dogmatic narrative of the cultural elite.

I am writing this sentence for the umpteenth time, but not a week goes by without social media news feeds and online tabloids covering the story of yet another cancelled celebrity. This week we have been gifted with two: the lead guitarist of band Mumford and Sons, as well as the fiery host of Good Morning Britain who has had a high bounty placed on his head by the woke mob for quite some time now.

Winston Marshall and Piers Morgan, through their words and opinions, both broke the new regime’s guidelines for acceptable thought, deviating from its rigid speech codes. Marshall was in the dock for reading a book; more specifically, a book titled ‘Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy’, a documentation of the violent far-left street militia known as Antifa, who have since caused the author, Andy Ngo, to flee the United States for his safety.

On the 7th March, Marshall commented on Ngo’s book, tweeting that he ‘finally had the time to read your important book. You’re a brave man’, and the mob immediately descended upon him. Within three days, he was booted out of the band, accompanied by a tweet explaining that ‘over the past few days I have come to better understand the pain caused by the book I endorsed’, along with ‘I am taking time away from the band to examine my blind spots.’ However, or perhaps because of this incident with Marshall (otherwise termed ‘the Streisand effect’), Ngo’s book is currently Amazon’s #1 best seller, with over 90% of the reviews being a five-star rating.

Marshall did not read or endorse anything unpopular with the general public, just what’s outside the dogmatic narrative of the cultural elite. He didn’t sing praises about Mein Kampf but, rather, he stood against those who wouldn’t look out of place at a Nazi book burning session. Antifa crowds laid siege to bookstores for daring to sell Ngo’s book, yet Marshall is somehow the one cursed with blind spots.

His grovelling apology is perhaps the most insidious subplot of this cancel culture story. Firstly, it attempts to relinquish the mob’s and the cultural elite’s guilt in erasing Marshall from the music industry, painting it to be his personal decision to leave the band, when we know this is far from the case. Secondly, it is a further manifestation of dissent becoming pathologized – that is, in Stalinist fashion, those whose beliefs fall outside the new regime’s ‘Overton window’ are labelled as psychiatrically unfit and in dire need of re-education.

Then we have Piers Morgan – love him or hate him, he is a vicious defender of his beliefs, willing to verbally battle anyone on a live broadcast beamed at millions. Although he let his aggressiveness get the better of him by storming off the stage during a heated debate about his recent comments surrounding Meghan Markle, it was this demeanour which brought in the viewers, and the money, contributing to ITV topping the BBC in terms of Breakfast TV popularity.

Morgan turned against the cultural elite and its new pin-up star, Meghan Markle. After Markle’s interview with the US chat show host Oprah Winfrey, Morgan was one of the few brave enough to challenge her comments surrounding racism in the Royal Family and question the true state of her mental health. This was too much for the ITV apparatus to bear, so Morgan was given the ultimatum to either apologise or depart from the show.

Unlike Marshall, he exited his profession with his dignity intact; the absence of any false apology preserving his reputation and trust with his fans. Morgan will retain his popularity, particularly when the British public’s approval of the Harry-Meghan progressive power couple has been in freefall since the Oprah Winfrey interview. Also, does anyone really believe Marshall has had a change of heart since his punishment? No – his dissent now exists under the surface, firing through the neurons of his brain instead of the Twitter sphere.

A facet of cancel culture is that an apology is a sign of guilt, not reparations, which is why, as Morgan knows, grovelling on bended knee does not save those caught in the crosshairs. So what is the point of appeasement?