There was a time, not that long ago, when a university debating society existed to debate. Students would invite speakers from across the political spectrum precisely because they wanted their ideas tested, challenged, and argued over. That is how you build adults who can think. That is how a democracy keeps itself healthy.
Bangor University's Debating and Political Society has decided it doesn't want any of that. They have refused a request to host a Q&A with Reform UK campaigner Jack Anderton and Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin, citing a "zero tolerance for any form of racism, transphobia or homophobia" policy. Let me be blunt: this is a smear dressed up as a principle.
Refusing To Debate Is Not A Moral Stance
Reform UK is a legitimate, democratically elected political party. Sarah Pochin is a sitting Member of Parliament, elected by thousands of her constituents. To imply that inviting her to speak would somehow breach a code against racism or bigotry isn't just lazy. It is slanderous. It tells every Reform UK voter in Wales that the student society regards them as beyond the pale.
The message to young people is corrosive. It teaches them that certain ideas are so dangerous they cannot be spoken aloud, even in the controlled environment of a student Q&A. That isn't education. That is indoctrination.
This Is Happening Everywhere
Bangor is not an outlier. This is a pattern playing out across British higher education. Gender-critical academics silenced. Visiting speakers no-platformed. Students disciplined for expressing perfectly legal opinions. A generation of young British people are being trained to believe that disagreement is violence and debate is harm.
As a Reform UK councillor I speak to young people every week who tell me they feel unable to say what they think on campus. They self-censor. They pretend to agree. They learn that the only safe path through university is conformity. How exactly is this supposed to produce free citizens?
Universities Are Supposed To Be Brave
The whole point of a university is that it is a place where ideas can be tested without physical consequence. A place where students learn to argue their case, marshal evidence, and change their minds when they are wrong. Bangor's debating society, of all places, should understand this. If they cannot stomach a 90 minute Q&A with an MP they disagree with, what exactly are they training their members to do?
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK would put the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act back at the top of the agenda and give it actual teeth. Universities that refuse to host legally elected politicians from mainstream parties should face financial consequences. We would protect the right of students to hear dissenting views, even the ones their societies find uncomfortable. That is what a free country looks like.
Sarah Pochin will be fine. She has a mandate and she doesn't need a student society to validate it. The people losing out here are the Bangor students who will graduate without ever having had a chance to challenge their own assumptions.