Mumford And Sons Guitarist Quits Band To “Speak Freely” On His Political Views

Mumford and Sons’ guitarist, Winston Marshall has quit the band. It follows Marshall’s controversial praise for Unmasked, a book that takes aim at the antifa protest movement.

Rather than the classic Notes app screenshot on Twitter, Marshall actually took to a lengthy Medium post to share the news.

After paragraphs of prose about his time with Mumford and Sons, Winston Marshall wrote, “Who in their right mind would willingly walk away from this?”

“It turns out I would. And as you might imagine it’s been no easy decision.”

“At the beginning of March I tweeted to American journalist Andy Ngo, author of the New York Times Bestseller, Unmasked. ‘Congratulations @MrAndyNgo. Finally had the time to read your important book. You’re a brave man.'”

“Posting about books had been a theme of my social-media throughout the pandemic. I believed this tweet to be as innocuous as the others. How wrong I turned out to be.”

He recalls his name trending and the backlash he received. He continues, “I failed to foresee that my commenting on a book critical of the Far-Left could be interpreted as approval of the equally abhorrent Far-Right.”

Later in the post, he writes, “Despite being four individuals we were, in the eyes of the public, a unity.”

“Furthermore it’s our singer’s name on the tin.”

“Despite pressure to nix me they invited me to continue with the band.

“That took courage, particularly in the age of so called “cancel culture”. I made an apology and agreed to take a temporary step back.”

He says that if he were to continue with the band, he’d have to continue to self-censor.

“The only way forward for me is to leave the band,” he concludes. “I hope in distancing myself from them I am able to speak my mind without them suffering the consequences.”

Read the full statement here.

The band shared an old band photo to Twitter. They wrote, “We wish you all the best for the future, Win, and we love you man. M, B & T.”

Of course, this isn’t the first incident of the band finding themselves in hot water over their political alignments.

Back in 2018 the band was blasted for sharing a photo with controversial right wing academic, Jordan Peterson.