Who is stifling whose free speech here?

This blog was kindly authored by Rose Stephenson, Director of Policy and Strategy at the Higher Education Policy Institute.

If you haven’t heard the latest in the free speech wars, let me give you the lowdown. Sarah Pochin, Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby and Jack Anderton, a Reform Party Advisor, requested that the Debating and Political Society at the University of Bangor host them for a question-and-answer session as part of Anderton’s ‘New Dawn Tour’.

The Debating Society turned them down – more on that in a moment. First, in true debating style, let’s have a Point of Order.

Pochin and Anderton were not ‘banned’ or ‘no-platformed’. They had asked a society to host them, and the society said no. I could email all the university debating societies in the UK and request that they host me to give a Q&A on whatever particular soapbox I am standing on that week (I have many). They are not violating my right to free speech by turning me down; they might simply have more interesting things to do than to listen to me.

However, as a result, the Telegraph quotes Pochin as saying: ‘So much for Free Speech. How can Bangor University’s debating society be afraid of debate?’ and Anderton as stating that the society was not ‘interested in debating’.

I had a look at the Debating Society’s website to see if they are indeed not interested in debating. Debates from the last semester include the following:

• this house would stop apologising for colonialism;
• this house would abolish the Human Rights Act;
• this house believes the Tradwife is feminism’s final boss (fascinating!); and
• this house believes the government has no right to censor pornography.

This seems like a fairly robust interest across several complex topics.

Where this becomes a free speech issue is that the Debating Society put out a rather strong statement turning down the request from Anderton and Pochin, which said:

The Debating & Political Society received a request from Jack Anderton and Sarah Pochin MP of Reform UK to attend Bangor University and give a Q&A to students. In line with our values, this request was refused. We stand by this decision as a committee. We have zero tolerance for any form of racism, transphobia, or homophobia displayed by the members of Reform UK. Their approach to the lives of others is antithetical to the values of welcoming and fair debate that our society has upheld for 177 years. We are proud to be the first of the debating unions to take a stand against Reform UK. We strongly implore our fellow societies to join us in keeping hate out of our universities.

So, they didn’t turn Reform down simply because they weren’t interested; they turned them down due to a clash of values. Let’s remember that this is the debating society’s committee, likely a handful of students, who set out their strong feelings about Reform on Instagram.

Zia Yusuf, Reform’s Head of Policy responded by writing on X:

Bangor University* have banned Reform and called us racist, transphobic and homophobic. Bangor receives £30 million in state funding a year, much of which comes from Reform-voting taxpayers. I am sure they won’t mind losing every penny of state funding under a Reform government. After all, they wouldn’t want a racist’s money, would they?

*it wasn’t the university, it was the committee of one society of the students’ union.

Perhaps I am being naive here. But, if Reform really, really, really believed in promoting free speech at universities, they might have replied to state that their offer continues to stand to the Debating Society and that they hope to engage in the future. Instead, they threatened to withdraw public funding from the only university in north-west Wales and one of the region’s biggest employers.

Yes, the students have a strong opinion here. But surely that opinion itself should be protected as a form of free speech? If public figures have the right to say offensive and harmful things, surely people listening have the right to state that they find these to be offensive and harmful. Instead of taking an approach to work with the society, Reform has dropped an anvil of a threat on the heads of a handful of students.

Pochin continues to have a significant national platform, and Anderton is on tour and according to his website will be visiting The University of Edinburgh , Lancaster University, The University of Cambridge , The University of Exeter, Durham University, and the University of York.

To be clear, when I visit and speak to universities, I am advocating, in the strongest possible terms, that colleagues engage with their local Reform party members and councillors. Further, I explain that they must consider the 27% of the population who hold a medium-level qualification (A-Level or equivalent) and voted for Reform in the last election. To what extent does this group of voters feel like university is a place for them?

I’ve also written extensively on the topic of free speech in universities, and you can find my blogs here. In particular, I have written about the role universities have in promoting free speech:

If we truly want to promote free speech, we have to teach the skills of unlearning: curiosity, open-mindedness, resilience and tolerance. This isn’t to say that all students should change their minds or perceptions. This might happen, but what we also need to develop is the curiosity to understand why someone thinks or believes differently from us. What led them to this belief? Why is it important to them? And, in turn, why do we hold the belief that we do? What led us to that viewpoint and why is it important to us?

And yes, there may well be a place for this at Bangor University. However, I will continue to defend the students’ right to say that something is racist if they believe that this is the case.

So, in this latest episode of the culture wars, there are three important takeaways for me:

1. You have the right to free speech, but you don’t have the right to force people to listen.
2. You have the right to free speech (within the law) that may be offensive and harmful, and others have the equivalent right to speak out against this. Free speech is a two-way street.
3. There is plenty of work to be done in universities to develop curiosity and open engagement with challenging ideas. Perhaps it would be helpful if our politicians also demonstrated these attributes.