How the internet reacted to Winston Marshall quitting Mumford and Sons following Andy Ngo controversy

Winston Marshall has quit Mumford and Sons after voicing his support for Unmasked, a controversial book by Andy Ngo criticising the antifa movement.

In a lengthy blog, Marshall said his tweet had dragged his band members into a social media storm and that he hoped “in distancing myself from them” he would be more “able to speak my mind without them suffering the consequences.”

He said: “At the beginning of March I tweeted to American journalist Andy Ngo.

“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.

“Over the course of 24 hours it was trending with tens of thousands of angry retweets and comments. 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.”

Marshall’s tweet, which he posted in March read: “Congratulations @MrAndyNgo. Finally had the time to read your important book. You’re a brave man”.

Critics of the book, which claims to expose a “violent extremist movement”, say it inflates the threat of the left-wing antifa movement.

Reacting to his exodus, some shared messages of support, including the rest of the band:

Others were not so fussed and thought his support of Ngo warranted the backlash:

And then there were a few who found his writing style amusing for one particular reason:

We’ll wait and see what the banjo player does next.