Journalist Julie Burchill's book on cancel culture has been scrapped by her publisher for what it said were Islamophobic comments.<br/> Ms Burchill and Hachette confirmed the company was pulling out of the deal to publish <em>Welcome to the Woke Trials: How #Identity Killed Progressive Politics</em>, which was promoted as a "characteristically irreverent and entertaining" indictment of the "outrage mob". Cancel culture – also known as call-out culture – is a form of ostracism in which someone is excluded from professional or social circles, either on social media, in the real world, or both.<br/> Hachette subsidiary Little, Brown and Company said Ms Burchill's comments on Islam were "not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint". The writer previously made comments critical of Islam and on Sunday became embroiled in a Twitter spat with journalist Ash Sarkar, a Muslim.<br/> Ms Sarkar tweeted: "Julie Burchill, who once I suppose was a well-regarded journalist, has quite openly subjected me to Islamophobia on here. I'm a big girl – it's not going to upset me – but I do find it strange that none of her colleagues or friends in the industry seems to have a problem with it." Little, Brown said in a statement: “We will no longer be publishing Julie Burchill’s book. This is not a decision we have taken lightly. We believe passionately in freedom of speech at Little, Brown and we have always published authors with controversial or challenging perspectives – and we will continue to do so. “While there is no legal definition of hate speech in the UK, we believe that Julie’s comments on Islam are not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint, that they crossed a line with regard to race and religion, and that her book has now become inextricably linked with those views.” Burchill has been a well-known writer in the UK and further afield since the 1980s and is a correspondent at <em>The Sunday Telegraph</em>.<br/>