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Reform UK asked students at Bangor University would they like to enjoy a question-and-answer session with Sarah Pochin – the Reform UK MP famous for saying it “drives me mad” to see TV adverts full of black people – and Jack Anderton, the 25-year-old influencer who helped send Nigel Farage’s TikTok account viral among teenagers? No, the university’s debating society decided, it would not as nt “in line with our values” declining Reform’s offer, expressing “zero tolerance for any form of racism, transphobia or homophobia”.
Reform’s Zia Yusuf thundered on X that Bangor got £30m from taxpayers and he was “sure they won’t mind losing every penny of (their) state funding under a Reform government”.
So Reform threatens to put universities out of business – with all that would mean for students halfway through their degrees, or towns reliant on a major employer – if they don’t fawningly accommodate any regime-backed Reform political nonentity who asks is the stuff of autocracy, not democracy. And the lesson from Donald Trump’s America, where pro-free speech Republicans have proved remarkably intolerant of people speaking against them, is that the pressure rarely stops there.
What would stop the financial intimidation of a BBC reliant on the licence fee? What about charities and cultural or civic institutions receiving public grants, or newspapers with owners anxious to protect their other business interests, or schools? Though a Reform spokesperson later insisted Yusuf’s comments were “not party policy”, Yusef's literal job title is head of policy, and Reform has previously advocated removing at least some funding from universities that don’t protect "free speech".
I think what the bangor students said was 'generally horrible' and I think that anyone now throwing around the term transphobic us more than likey a threat to women and gay rights.
I just hope that today’s students grow up quickly😬
No, the university’s debating society decided, it would not as not “in line with our values” declining Reform’s offer, expressing “zero tolerance for any form of racism, transphobia or homophobia”.
What concerns me is not the fact that they say it is not in line with their values but the fact that this is a debating society and they have closed their minds to any type of debate which does not concur with their views.
This is the whole point of debate - to listen to someone else's views then take each point, discuss, present the opposite or different point of view, then vote.
Their minds are as closed as they believe hers to be.
Who knows - they may even have made Sarah Pochin think again about her own values.
Galaxy
I think what the bangor students said was 'generally horrible' and I think that anyone now throwing around the term transphobic us more than likey a threat to women and gay rights.
I would say when I was a student at Bangor we were very much concerned with women's rights. We were just seeing the evidence of the misogyny endemic in the 1968 demonstrations in France, Maoism (we had quite a lot of those) and other male dominated revolutionary movements.
We were the generation of university students who moved on to become the Feminist Movement of the seventies, always more practical than rhetorical in action.
Unfortunately Mamie that was then 😲
The feminist movement of the seventies was wonderful but what happened ? We need some of those women back !
Oreo
Unfortunately Mamie that was then 😲
I have never had any sense of what you are describing from my grandchildren at university Oreo. The one who is a medical student is certainly more grown up than a lot of adults I know.
Do you see that in the university students you know in real life?
As for Sarah Pochin she wanted question and answer. Did she really want to meet a seasoned debater across the table? There were some pretty good (particularly Welsh) orators when I was there.
nanna8
The feminist movement of the seventies was wonderful but what happened ? We need some of those women back !
I guess their daughters are there as leaders in the workplace Nanna8. 😊
Primrose53
Debating means listening and commenting on different points of view. So Bangor just wants to debate to people who agree with them?
No, they simply don’t want any truck with racism.
It’s not Bangor Primrose53, it’s the Students Debating Group, run by students on a voluntary basis. There is a big difference between the two.
Mamie
Oreo
Unfortunately Mamie that was then 😲
I have never had any sense of what you are describing from my grandchildren at university Oreo. The one who is a medical student is certainly more grown up than a lot of adults I know.
Do you see that in the university students you know in real life?
As for Sarah Pochin she wanted question and answer. Did she really want to meet a seasoned debater across the table? There were some pretty good (particularly Welsh) orators when I was there.
Mamie am I right in thinking you’re in France?
A lot of our universities here in the UK have students unions that are hotbeds of trans activism, and antisemitism where the students tell the faculty what they should and shouldn’t do and who isn’t allowed on university grounds.Staff are scared of reprisals if they don’t go along with their wishes.Guest speakers are no platformed and university staff sometimes lose their jobs if they dare speak out or incur the wrath of students.
It’s a sad situation.
Furret
Primrose53
Debating means listening and commenting on different points of view. So Bangor just wants to debate to people who agree with them?
No, they simply don’t want any truck with racism.
They don’t want any truck with many things tbh in Universities now, how they’ll ever cope in their future working lives is a mystery.
If anything I’d say students are less militant now than they were in our day.
Furret
Primrose53
Debating means listening and commenting on different points of view. So Bangor just wants to debate to people who agree with them?
No, they simply don’t want any truck with racism.
So they have no faith in their abilities to put forward reasons and arguments to help someone see things differently and change their minds?
They believe they are ineffectual.
Pretty poor and not much help in a future career where they might want to persuade people to their way of thinking!
I think it’s more that they don’t want to waste their time engaging with bigots who will publicise inaccurately after the event, and twist what students say to their own ends Allira. University students are inexperienced but they are not stupid.
And again that is what a number of universities called many women who were raising concerns about women's rights and child safeguarding, they behaved incredibly stupidly on that issue.
It is very rare in my experience for people who shout transphobia to not use homophobic arguments in their defense of men in women's spaces.
I would be very interested in what they view as transphobia.
Casdon
I think it’s more that they don’t want to waste their time engaging with bigots who will publicise inaccurately after the event, and twist what students say to their own ends Allira. University students are inexperienced but they are not stupid.
Sadly, they cannot see that they are bigoted in their own way too.
Allira
Casdon
I think it’s more that they don’t want to waste their time engaging with bigots who will publicise inaccurately after the event, and twist what students say to their own ends Allira. University students are inexperienced but they are not stupid.
Sadly, they cannot see that they are bigoted in their own way too.
Of course they are, but that shouldn’t mean that other people can tell them who to entertain in their own group?
When they older and more mature they might think that they should have had the courage to take her on and demolish her arguments logically!
Oreo
Mamie
Oreo
Unfortunately Mamie that was then 😲
I have never had any sense of what you are describing from my grandchildren at university Oreo. The one who is a medical student is certainly more grown up than a lot of adults I know.
Do you see that in the university students you know in real life?
As for Sarah Pochin she wanted question and answer. Did she really want to meet a seasoned debater across the table? There were some pretty good (particularly Welsh) orators when I was there.Mamie am I right in thinking you’re in France?
A lot of our universities here in the UK have students unions that are hotbeds of trans activism, and antisemitism where the students tell the faculty what they should and shouldn’t do and who isn’t allowed on university grounds.Staff are scared of reprisals if they don’t go along with their wishes.Guest speakers are no platformed and university staff sometimes lose their jobs if they dare speak out or incur the wrath of students.
It’s a sad situation.
Granddaughters and all their friends, plus the children and grandchildren of our friends, have been or are at universities in the UK, as that is where they all live. We hear a lot about their lives. The biggest problem recently seems to be how thinly spread the university staff are, because of cuts.
I also see and hear the media stories.
I have some friends with children in French Universities, but don't know much about internal politics. They go to local universities and have minimal fees.
Reform offered a question and answer session and the university club said 'no thanks'.
Then Reform threatened the University.
Is that normal?
Allira
When they older and more mature they might think that they should have had the courage to take her on and demolish her arguments logically!
Maybe when she realises how she is viewed by students she will think that it was unwise to try to impose herself on them and then complain when they didn’t want to engage with her. I suspect both scenarios are equally likely.
Maremia
Reform offered a question and answer session and the university club said 'no thanks'.
Then Reform threatened the University.
Is that normal?
No, it's childish.
I have just looked up her views on trans rights, unless I am missing something horrific, they are identical to mine. Bog standard gender critical views.
Looks like I am never going to be able to speak to the students of Bangor, their loss 
Allira
When they older and more mature they might think that they should have had the courage to take her on and demolish her arguments logically!
That isn't how a University DebSoc event normally works though.
Basically two or three people moving the motion, two or three
opposing the motion, then questions from the floor and a vote.
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