The banjo player banjaxed by a tweet

THE banjo player and lead guitarist with globally successful British folk-rock group Mumford & Sons has quit the band — the latest victim of ‘cancel culture’.

Winston Marshall, 33, performed for 14 years with the multi-million-selling group. But in March he attracted a furious online backlash after he sent an ‘innocuous’ tweet backing a conservative-leaning journalist for his book, which is critical of violent far-left group Antifa.

Marshall, son of multi-millionaire hedge fund manager Sir Paul Marshall, told Andy ngo: ‘Congratulations . . . Finally had the time to read your important book. You’re a brave man.’

left-wing social media users immediately piled on to the star, accused him of being a ‘fascist’ and demanded his sacking from the chart-topping band, which has played for Barack obama.

Marshall apologised — only to attract fury from Right-wingers, who believed he had done nothing wrong — and temporarily stepped back from the band. on Thursday, he posted a blog, republished below, explaining that he had decided to quit altogether.

He said: ‘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.’

He pointed out that the accusation of being ‘fascist’ was all the more unreasonable given that members of his own family had been murdered by the nazis in the Holocaust.

Mumford & Sons said: ‘We wish you all the best for the future, Win, and we love you man.’

The book by ngo is titled Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan To destroy democracy. It was an Amazon bestseller and appeared on The new York Times list for non-fiction.

Antifa (an abbreviation of ‘anti-fascist’) is a widespread, loose-knit organisation that has been involved in violent clashes in several U.S. cities. donald Trump sought to proscribe it as a terror organisation.

Here we reprint Marshall’s impassioned cry for reason . . .