The Oxford Union is facing boycotts and a furious backlash after its new president celebrated the assassination of American political activist Charlie Kirk.
Many forthcoming events are now in doubt following online remarks by Union president-elect, George Abaraonye, who declared on WhatsApp: ‘Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f***ing go.’ He is also said to have posted on Instagram: ‘Charlie Kirk got shot loool’ (short for ‘laugh out loud’).
Mr Abaraonye, 20, who took part in a debate with Mr Kirk in May, is under growing pressure to resign.
Yesterday US entrepreneur Josh Wolfe, co-founder of venture capitalists Lux Capital, cancelled a Union appearance, as did Liora Rez, executive director at the American campaign group StopAntisemitism.
The Union took the extraordinary step of issuing a statement attacking its own, saying it ‘would like to unequivocally condemn the reported words and sentiments expressed by the president-elect’.
And last night, the honorary secretary of the Oxford Literary Debating & Union Trust – the charity that owns the buildings used by the Oxford Union – resigned in protest at the president-elect’s remarks.
The university itself was quick to distance itself from the Union, saying it ‘deplored’ the comments.
Mr Abaraonye yesterday told student media that he had ‘reacted impulsively’ and extended his condolences to Mr Kirk’s family. ‘To be clear,’ he said, ‘nobody deserves to be the victim of political violence.’
George Abaraonye debates Charlie Kirk at the Oxford Union in May
The student relaxes at the Union, where he is due to take over the prestigious presidency of the debating society
Despite his contrition, the fact that he had posted two separate messages gloating over Mr Kirk’s murder – on a university campus to boot – remains a grave embarrassment for both university and Union.
Previously, Mr Abaraonye’s story had been one of meteoric success starting at his West London state school, Chelsea Academy, where he had qualified for free school meals. He had shown sufficient promise to win a place at Oxford to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE), despite sub-standard A-Level grades of an A and two Bs, and a rejection from Warwick University. ‘F*** Warwick,’ he recently told a student magazine, adding: ‘Oxford isn’t exactly what you think it is. It’s not all posh, rich, Eton tw**s drinking wine.’
He added, that neither his father, Casey, who runs a cycle shop, nor mother, Peri, had attended university.
Merely getting to Oxford was a great achievement in itself but he has since risen onwards and upwards through a number of Oxford’s competitive hierarchies, including its African and Caribbean, its Arab and its HipHop societies. Nothing, however, matches the kudos of becoming President of the Union. There are just three presidents elected each year – one for each term – from a student body of 26,000. It is a fiercely competitive process, as everyone from William Gladstone to William Hague, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have discovered. And the greatest accolade of all is to run the Union in the first term of the academic year.
As ‘Michaelmas President’, Mr Abaraonye has therefore risen to the very top.
However, his callous response to the Kirk murder raises questions far beyond Oxford. If the cream of academe can spout toxic Leftist hatespeak with impunity, then it is harder to demonise a Right winger for doing the same in reverse.
Indeed, is the sentiment expressed by Mr Abaraonye really very different from the inflammatory tweet which landed Lucy Connolly with a jail sentence?
They were both encouraging their followers to grab the nearest pitchfork.
The whole point of the Union is that it is a debating society, not that its leader seems to have much truck with this boring oratory stuff. Mr Abaraonye takes a simpler, absolutist view that political opponents deserve a bullet.
On a more parochial note, we are left wondering what qualities Union members look for in their presidents these days.
They clearly don’t choose them on the basis of rhetorical skill. Just watch Mr Abaraonye debating with Mr Kirk four months ago.
Mr Kirk asks why suicide rates are now higher than ever among young men in liberal Western societies which discriminate against boys because of their ‘toxic masculinity’. Mr Abaraonye tries to argue that it is all because of, like, inequality and austerity (he says ‘like’ a great deal; we are not talking Cicero or Churchill).
Mr Kirk, who points out that he himself never went to university, then asks him to explain why male suicide rates are much lower in poorer countries where men have more traditional roles. Mr Abaraonye sheepishly replies ‘I don’t know’ and slopes off.
By last night, calls were growing for the him to be kicked out of the presidency, of the Union and, indeed, the university.
The latter would be excessive. While he himself would no doubt be demanding the instant cancellation of any Oxford Union president celebrating the murder of a Left-wing politician, he should not have his entire life ruined for a moment of online stupidity. But that glittering CV lies in tatters.
The episode will also lend further credence to growing social media calls for a ban on anyone with an Oxford degree in PPE (Liz Truss, Ed Miliband, Rishi Sunak and Rachel Reeves among them) from being allowed anywhere near public office.
Oxford can be grateful for one thing: at least its alumni elected William Hague in the recent contest for a new Chancellor. Otherwise, the university might now be facing hurricane-force twin controversies this weekend as it prepares for another academic year.
Had it not been for Lord Hague seeing off his old political rival, Peter Mandelson, in that Oxford race ten months ago, then Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘best pal’ could very well now be head of the university.
