Mumford & Sons Member Winston Marshall Officially Leaves Band After Political Controversy

Mumford & Sons guitarist and banjo player Winston Marshall is officially leaving the group after taking a leave of absence in March on the heels of a controversy in which he supported a right-wing pundit. Marshall wrote a lengthy explanation in an essay for Medium Thursday, explaining that he didn’t want to cause his bandmates “more trouble” nor “continue to self-censor.”

“For me to speak about what I’ve learnt to be such a controversial issue will inevitably bring my bandmates more trouble. My love, loyalty and accountability to them cannot permit that,” Marshall wrote in his essay. “I could remain and continue to self-censor but it will erode my sense of integrity. Gnaw my conscience. I’ve already felt that beginning.”

The “only way forward” was to leave the band, Marshall continued, which he hopes will allow him to speak his mind without his former bandmates “suffering the consequences.” He wrote, “I leave with love in my heart and I wish those three boys nothing but the best. I have no doubt that their stars will shine long into the future.” Marshall will continue working with Hong Kong Link Up and pursue “new creative projects,” he said as well as writing and speaking on a “variety of issues, challenging as they may be.”

Marshall initially was criticized in March after tweeting that Andy Ngo’s book Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy was an “important book,” calling the author a “brave man.” A few days later, Marshall apologized, saying he would be taking time away from the band to “examine [his] blindspots.”

In Marshall’s essay, he described his decision to take the initial leave of absence: “Rather predictably another viral mob came after me, this time for the sin of apologizing. Then followed libelous articles calling me ‘right-wing’ and such,” he wrote. While the musician said there was “nothing wrong with being conservative,” he goes back and forth between “‘centrist,’ ‘liberal’ or the more honest ‘bit this, bit that.’”

“Being labeled erroneously just goes to show how binary political discourse has become. I had criticized the ‘Left,’ so I must be the ‘Right,’ or so their logic goes,” he continued, adding that his “commenting on a book that documents the extreme Far-Left and their activities is in no way an endorsement of the equally repugnant Far-Right.”

“The truth is that reporting on extremism at the great risk of endangering oneself is unquestionably brave,” he wrote. “I also feel that my previous apology in a small way participates in the lie that such extremism does not exist, or worse, is a force for good.”