A planned speech by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman had to be cancelled after a pro-Palestinian group called for efforts to “no platform” her.
The event, scheduled to take place at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on Thursday evening, was to be hosted by the Cambridge University Conservative Association, known to students as CUCA. Braverman, a former chairman of the Association, was due to talk about her life and career in national politics.
However, a few days after the event was announced to CUCA members, the group Cambridge for Palestine, which describes itself as a “Student-led coalition standing against Cambridge University’s complicity in apartheid and genocide”, decided to disrupt it.
In a social media post, the group called for “no platform for the far right”. Describing Braverman’s views as “hyper-authoritarian populist” on matters like “migration, policing and protest”, they announced that the former Home Secretary is “everything we stand against.”
Hoping to “embarrass” Braverman, Cambridge for Palestine instructed its followers to “[b]ring your flags, your friends and your anti-fascist energy” to protest her speech, providing the exact time and location of the event.
When they learnt about the protest, CUCA committee members met with Corpus Christi officials to discuss the new circumstances. While showing no animosity towards free speech or the event itself, the College stressed that the pro-Palestinian protest meant that additional security would be required to guarantee everyone’s safety. CUCA considered arranging for the extra security itself, but deemed the estimated cost of £1500 too expensive.
In comments to the Telegraph, Braverman lamented the efforts by Cambridge for Palestine to disrupt the event through “threats, intimidation, and mob-rule tactics”, describing the group as “radical” and “militant”. The former Home Secretary went on to say that this is “not a peaceful protest; it’s an attempt to silence a democratically-elected Member of Parliament and an attack on free speech and British values”.
Speaking to the Committee for Academic Freedom, the chairman of CUCA Szymon Sawicki mentioned that an attempt had been made to move the event to the Cambridge Union. However, this turned out to not possible, despite the Union having no objection to hosting Braverman. Another event featuring several MPs was already booked for the evening, and the Telegraph reports that the Union had apparently been advised by the police against adding the Braverman to their schedule.
Although the event is currently on indefinite hold, both Braverman and CUCA are adamant that it will go ahead in the future. “Conservatives will not back down” the former Home Secretary told the Telegraph, “I will not be silenced and neither will the millions of British people and defenders of free speech who stand proud, firm and unyielding against radical mob rule”.
Szymon Sawicki likewise said that CUCA was committed to finding a new date and venue for the event. When asked about the possibility of another protest and increased security risk, he replied that Cambridge for Palestine “have a right to protest – it is a free country”, but insisted that as long as “we can guarantee the safety of our speakers and our guests”, the event will go ahead.
After news broke that the event had been cancelled, Cambridge for Palestine shared a new post on social media, which celebrated the postponement of the event “due to the planned protest”, claiming that they had made it “too scary for Suella”. They also encouraged their followers to “keep an eye on CUCA socials and be ready to mobilise any time she tries to sneak past us.”
This open celebration of the event’s postponement and mocking suggestion that Braverman was too scared to come to Cambridge, is telling. It indicates that the group did not want to engage or debate the former Home Secretary, or the members of CUCA for that matter, but simply hoped to deny her an opportunity to speak. Indeed, it looks like they were the ones “too scared” to listen to opposing views, or even to let others hear those views.
One encouraging aspect of the incident, however, comes from the CUCA chairman, who emphasised that both Corpus Christi and the Cambridge Union were committed to free speech and had no objections to the event. According to Sawicki, “all the blame lies with the protestors”.
Students and ordinary citizens alike have a right to protest any speaker of their choosing, but deliberately aiming to “no platform” those with opposing views, and celebrating a successful intimidation campaign against a sitting MP, demonstrates a lack of respect for democracy.