Winston Marshall QUITS Mumford and Sons: Banjoist ‘willingly walks away’ from British folk act five months after Twitter storm sparked by ‘innocuous’ post praising US Conservative journalist Andy Ngo
Mumford and Sons banjo player Winston Marshall has quit the folk rock band just five months after he was pilloried in public for making an ‘innocuous’ post on Twitter praising a controversial journalist.
In a 1,263-word essay on Medium, the son of Brexit-supporting millionaire Sir Paul Marshall revealed that he feared his political opinions would ‘inevitably’ bring his bandmates ‘more trouble’.
He added that he could have chosen to ‘remain and continue to self-censor’, but said that it would ‘erode my sense of integrity’.
Mumford and Sons banjo player Winston Marshall has quit the folk rock band just five months after he was pilloried in public for making an ‘innocuous’ post on Twitter praising a controversial journalist
Winston Marshall was attacked on social media after tweeting support for US journalist Andy Ngo. In 2015, Marshall married Glee star Dianna Agron, before the couple divorced in August 2020. They are seen together in New York in 2015
Ngo’s (left) book Unmasked claims to expose Antifa – the name for protesters in the US who arrive at far-right marches to oppose them – as a ‘violent extremist movement’. Pictured right: Marshall’s tweet
The band in 2019. Pictured from left to right: Winston Marshall, Ted Dwane, Marcus Mumford and Ben Lovett
Mr Marshall was attacked on social media earlier this year after tweeting his support for US Right-wing reporter Andy Ngo’s work exposing Left-wing extremist group Antifa.
After Mr Marshall was accused of ‘endorsing Fascism’, the band held crisis talks – after which colleagues Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane, along with their management, reportedly asked him to leave the group.
In March the banjo player said he was stepping back from the group, leading one critic of cancel culture to write: ‘Never appease the hate mob, you should have stood by your words’.
Mr Ngo’s book Unmasked claims to expose Antifa – the name for protesters in the US who arrive at far-Right marches to oppose them – as a ‘violent extremist movement’.
Critics say it inflates the size and threat of the Left-wing Antifa movement, which was a frequent target of President Donald Trump. It was even described by the Los Angeles Times as ‘supremely dishonest’.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow
Ngo, who describes himself in his Twitter bio as ‘hated by Antifa’, is seen attempting to get away from the crowd
The march in Oregon where Ngo was attacked. He was covering protesters from the far-right Proud Boys group
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