Oxford and Cambridge Unions avoid terror ban on extremist speakers

The elite bastions of the Oxford and Cambridge Unions have been exempted from the government’s counter-terror ban on extremist speakers from university campuses, Home Office ministers have confirmed. The two prestigious student societies have escaped from the home secretary, Theresa May’s counter-terror crackdown on non-violent extremism in higher education after a strong lobby from senior Tory peers. The decision comes as the government issues new statutory guidance to university and further education student unions requiring them to have clear policies “setting out the activities that are or are not allowed to take place on campus”. The new guidance also suggests that elected student union officers and staff should also undergo Prevent counter-terrorism awareness training. The pressure to exempt the two elite student debating societies included protests from two ex-Cabinet ministers, Lord Deben and Lord Lamont, who claimed the ban would have stopped a famous 1960 Cambridge Union debate with the wartime British fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley. Mosley was invited and then directly challenged by two students who were both future Tory cabinet ministers, Kenneth Clarke and John Selwyn Gummer, despite demands from some Cambridge students, including Michael Howard, that the meeting should be banned. The issue was also raised with Home Office ministers, by Lord Renfrew, a former master of Jesus College, Cambridge, who told them that the Cambridge Union, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, could not continue to flourish with the freedom of speech constraints imposed on it by the new guidance. However, Oxford University insisted that because the debating union and the university are separate entities, it would never have been covered by the legislation.