Which side of the great campus free speech debate is UCLU on? On the ba- sis of its cack-handed management of speaker bookings over the past month, it’s rather difficult to tell.
The crushing defeat suffered by the UCL left in last year’s spring elections appeared to signal the end of the Un- ion as an overtly political body. But few could have predicted that Activities and Events Officer Asad Khan, who ran on a platform of ensuring no society felt “marginalised by the Union”, ending up doing just that – and in spectacular fashion.
Seen But Not Kurd
No sooner had the Union belatedly reneged on its initial refusal to author- ise a Kurdish Society event featuring College alumnus and one-time Kurdish resistance fighter Macer Gifford – cit- ing concerns that his tales of fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) might radicalise impressionable students – that it gave the green light to a since-cancelled de- bate on the same subject featuring three rabble-rousing loons (or “highly distin- guished speakers” if you’re on the De- bating Society committee): former Re- spect MP George Galloway, self-styled social commentator Mo Ansar, and crackpot anti-Zionist academic Rodney Shakespeare.
Up For Debate
Alongside them at the UCLU De- bating Society panel on whether west- ern military intervention gave rise to ISIS would have been a senior mem- ber of the Stop The War Coalition, the much-maligned group beloved of Jer- emy Corbyn, whose website hosted an article saying France was “reaping the whirlwind of western support for ex- tremist violence” in the aftermath of the recent terror attacks.
Early last month Khan judged Gif- ford, an urbane ex-City worker who once stood for election to an Oxford- shire district council as a Conservative, too dangerous to allow onto campus, choosing to “stay on the side of cau- tion” having consulted College and the Metropolitan Police. In the event, the Union allowed Gifford to speak after incurring the wrath of the national press (and Godless botherer Richard Dawk- ins) – underlining the farcical nature of the initial ban, and the utter pointless- ness of waiting for police approval that was neither necessary nor actually given – the Met never responded to College’s request for advice.
Better Safe Than Sorry?
The fact that Galloway, whose last vis- it to one of Debating Society’s Monday night free-for-alls saw a feminist protest end with his wife allegedly assaulting then-Women’s Officer Beth Sutton (see CG 42), was approved by the Union raises questions as to what exactly their definition of “staying on the side of cau- tion” is. Nor did UCLU choose to con- sult College and the Met over arguably anti-Semitic statements made by Ansar – widely derided in the press as a charlatan – and Shakespeare, whose extensive back catalogue of Israel bashing was only noted by Debating Soc following complaints from members on its Facebook page.
After Shakespeare’s invitation was eventually withdrawn, the other speakers took the unusual step of no-platforming hemselves – which many argued that, given the past comments of the invited speakers, should have been UCLU’s responsibility in the first place.
Recently government’s PREVENT strat- egy, intended to discourage radicalisation in institutions, has been causing headaches for universities. Whether it was the increased pressure of PREVENT or just general in- competence that led to the speaker approval confusion, the handful of people who turned up to a UCLU meeting to campaign against PREVENT suggests the union won’t be in the vanguard of opposition.