The reason Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema was denied a visa to enter the United Kingdom has been revealed and his party says it is “not surprised”.
The UK has revealed that it denied Malema a visa because of his openly expressed support for Hamas and utterances considered as inciting racial violence.
Reacting to the revelations, the EFF in a statement on Thursday, 19 June 2025, said it was “not surprised by the confirmation from the UK that the visa application by the Commander in Chief and President of the EFF Julius Malema was in fact denied due to political reasons”.
The statement added that Correspondence from the UK Home Office Secretary “confirmed that it has effectively banned the President of the EFF due to his position in relation to the genocide of Palestinian people, and his expressed support for the resistance movement fighting against the genocidal Israeli regime, as well as his position and that of the EFF on racial inequality in South Africa”.
The EFF said the letter confirms, “‘what we have long known and exposed when the Commander in Chief was told his visa application could not be processed due to administrative issues when he was set to visit at Cambridge University in May 2025 to deliver a lecture at the invite of students”.
The UK Home Office went as far as extending an apology for what it knew was a political ban that was being hidden under challenges of the administration.
The UK has declared the Commander in Chief and President of the EFF an “extremist” whose presence in that country would not be conducive for the public good.
“This country which has a long history of imperialism, and still has the blood of Africans dripping from its hands as its wealth was built on the back of African people, has suggested that all further applications by our President are likely to be denied unless he changes his posture on the issues which characterise him as a revolutionary,” the EFF said.
The EFF said the denial of the visa for Malema was not only cowardice by the UK but also a stifling of democratic debate.
The leftist party said the move was a “pathetic expression of intolerance” for those who hold different views from the UK administration including its monarchy.
“For a nation that preaches its commitment to democracy, the UK has revealed itself as an intolerant bully that seeks to impose its beliefs on the world without challenge, while denying democratically elected leaders of other nations the opportunity to express themselves in their country,” the EFF said.
The party said the “distortion” by the UK of Malema’s principled view on how the genuine frustrations of Africans who are excluded at the “behest of a white minority may lead to social violence and resistance, are sickening and must be characterised as an insult to our judiciary by a foreign nation”.
The EFF noted that the Equality Court, which the UK Home Office quotes in its letter, found that Malema expressed no intention to slaughter white people by singing ‘Kill The Boer, Kill The Farmer’.
The court ruled that the chant cannot be interpreted as a literal call for genocide, but rather as an expression of liberation heritage.
The Constitutional Court of South Africa further ratified this decision.
“There is no judge of the Equality Court of South Africa who ever posed a question to the President of the EFF challenging him to declare that he will never slaughter white people or make such an utterance, it was in fact the incompetent lawyer of the racist AfriForum Mark Oppenheimer who posed this question,” the party contended.
“The conflation of a lawyer and judge by a country as influential as the UK reveals deep-seated illiteracy by the UK and a peddling of misinformation by a state against South Africa’s judiciary which must be condemned.”
The EFF stated that neither its Commander in Chief, Malema, nor the party will “trade its revolutionary beliefs” in exchange for a visa.
“The UK and all of its allies can keep their visa’s, and we will keep our Africa and a commitment to support the oppressed of the world, especially the Palestinian people,” declared the EFF.
“The EFF reiterates that Iran, Palestine and all nations who suffer at the hands of the maniacal Israeli regime led by Benjamin Netanyahu and backed by the U.S., have the right to defend themselves.
“Domestically, we will continue to pursue constitutional and democratic means to ensure that land is expropriated without compensation and that the means of production are controlled by the African majority.
“We join the world in declaring that From The River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free!”
