Oxford Union alumni will descend on city to try to oust president-elect

Those answers were largely written by AI.

em dashes.
Groups of three.
'It's not this; it's this'.

For me there's a place near Occam's Razor and Hanlon's Razor that best descibes this behviour. Nihilistic racist child that thinks he knows it all. A destroyer not a builder. You nailed it.

Nasty little dickhead with a certain degree of opportunistic cunning.

So in addition to celebrating someone’s death for their opinions, we apparently have bullying and manipulation by his “representatives” plus an attempt to get personal details of those who voted against him. What a prince.

It would very much surprise me to learn he's a tactical genius.

Nasty little dickhead with a certain degree of opportunistic cunning, I'd buy.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

...some institutions are too broken, too regressive, too oppressive to be reformed, like cancers of our society. They must, and they should be taken down, by any means necessary.
—George Abaraonye

Is it possible that he is actually a tactical genius, and this is all part of a plan to destroy the reputation of the union? He claimed in leaked messages to have run for president because he hates it, so maybe this was all part of some sort of master plot in which he gets elected, does something totally disgraceful to spark a no confidence vote, then creates disruption and an appearance of corruption around that, all designed to destroy the union, both in reputation and financially?

You'd think this behaviour would disqualify the 'no' campaign altogether.

https://x.com/oxfordstandardx/status/1980238334816608756?s=46&t=ALGAiHxwK3XXeRoDQylnWA

Oxford Standard headline here saying it’s his reps that are doing the bullying.

Have also read he/his reps are querying every proxy vote, and are able to see every member and how they voted, breaching the secret ballot.

https://x.com/adrian_hilton/status/1980245247469797877?s=46&t=ALGAiHxwK3XXeRoDQylnWA

What an absolute fucking shit show

I read it as an attempt to sabotage the validation of the proxy votes, which will now continue without the Representatives being present. Both sides have been asked to send replacement Representatives.

Obviously, nobody should be bullying and intimidating anyone and if that's happening it needs to be addressed.

I don't see what it's got to do with the vote, though. The question of whether or not his conduct makes him unfit for the position is an entirely separate matter. Why's it holding things up?

Agreed. There is something delaying the results but no official statement yet.

If the announcement in the screenshot above is correct there has to be an investigation into the bullying and intimidation (at this point it's unclear who those allegations refer to)

I’m going down a rabbit hole here.

The jokes write themselves….

If you could only keep one of your manifesto pledges, which would it be?

George: Fixing the disciplinary process, without question. If we don’t have a fair, independent, and functional system for addressing harm or disputes, nothing else can work properly. It’s the foundation of a safe and accountable society.
Right now, that system is broken. People deserve clarity, justice, and closure, not endless confusion, silence, or delays.

https://www.cherwell.org/2025/06/13/oxford-union-town-hall-tt25-meet-the-candidates/

@PronounssheRa
Thanks for the photo of the statement. Until we hear otherwise we have to take it in good faith.

I find it extraodinary that in one of our most illustrious stories seats or learning that we have a student elected to head of the debating society who celebrates the death of a man who campaigned for free speech.
He complains that he has experienced threats, but the man who was killed not just experienced threats, but those threats were followed through. He was assassinated in public leaving a wife and two small children without a husband or father for the rest of their lives.
This 'man' celebrated that political murder.
And now they can't even conduct a vote on his suitability without it getting out of hand. Surely that's even more evidence of how unfit he is to live in a civilised society?

They say the internet never forgets. I hope this dark stain through his character follows him throughout his life. "Aren't you the guy who got no confidenced at Oxford for celebrating the murder of a man? Yeah I'm sorry, I don't think you'd be a good fit for our firm."

The adults need to come back into the room immediately. This is what happens when indoctrinated child activists are running the show. What a loser this young man has turned out to be. Determined to burn the whole thing to the ground rather than do the decent thing and step aside. Just disgusting behaviour.

From twitter

What a fucking shambles

The whole place sounds like a fucking shit show in general tbh.

In 2023, during my first term at Oxford, a previous shitposter ran for president. But he was swiftly disqualified after being found to have engaged in “conduct that amounts to harassment, bullying, or victimisation in connection with the election”. To make matters worse, his opponent was also disqualified, meaning the position ended up going to someone who hadn’t even run for it.

Abaraonye himself won the June 2025 election in the wake of reports that his opponent had faced a police investigation for harassment in connection to an anonymous WhatsApp “smear campaign” against political opponents.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/george-abaraonye-shows-the-oxford-union-isnt-serious-anymore/

I agree, the whole place does sound unserious.

The proceedings for the Poll of No Confidence brought against George Abaraony (President-Elect) have been INFORMALLY SUSPENDED due to the development of an impossible working atmosphere. The Extraordinary Returning Officer has been subject to obstruction, intimidation and hostility.

Someone has just posted this on X and also said that they haven't even started counting the votes yet.

I've no idea how reliable this source is

@BonfireLady

Sorry I meant to tag you when I edited to include the link.

If he had left out the ‘wholeheartedly agree’ with bit, I might think it was just a debating position, but his own emphasis makes it clear these are his thoughts.

I transcribed it from the video I saw, give me a sec and I will post a link

https://x.com/suffragent_/status/1966411211995513228?s=46&t=ALGAiHxwK3XXeRoDQylnWA

This is the first one that popped up, but type ‘George Abaraonye violent retaliation’ on Twitter/X and it’s been reposted by many different accounts.

Boris Johnson was president of the union so I don’t think honesty has ever been a requirement.

Haha, good point! But I'm talking about honesty in terms of honesty within the position, if you see what I mean. I think Johnson probably took the position with genuine respect for the institution and what it represented, understanding that it was meant to uphold free speech and be respectful of debate and opposing viewpoints (within reason). I'm sure he enjoyed the status - who wouldn't - but at the same time respected the institution. It's looking as though Abaraonye took the position to enjoy the status - he certainly is fighting to hold on to it - while also claiming he hates the institution, and openly breaching the values in terms of debate and free speech on which it's based. It's a different sort of dishonesty and it completely undermines the purpose and nature of the position itself.

Boris Johnson was president of the union so I don’t think honesty has ever been a requirement.

Thing is though, once I would have agreed the union should have been taken down- it was a nursery for some of the worst people in politics and didn’t promote the sort of values that we really needed to see more of in our political system. These days, however, now that the ability to discuss and tolerate disagreement seems to be under threat among students due to the increasing culture of purity spirals on the left, student debating societies could be more important than ever.

I was never a student debater (not brave enough) but dd was very involved at school- she got to the finals days of national schools competitions several times and has debated at the Oxford Union. It is clear she gained an enormous amount from the experience in the ability to hear and consider a range of viewpoints, not just to win debates herself. Right now we need to hold on to all the platforms for free speech we’ve got.

Didn't he say in leaked messages that he only ran for president because he hated the institution? I actually don't know what's to hate about it, it's a debating organisation. If he's happy to study at Oxford Uni, I can't see what's so objectionable about the OU, which is a separate body, albeit with obvious links. It couldn't possibly be that he's actually happy to take the status but still wants to style himself as a rebel somehow, could it?

Quite apart from everything else, it just doesn't sound like he's clever enough to be there. According to reports he got ABB in his A levels; I know Oxford is trying to be more inclusive these days to compensate for all the advantages private school kids get but I don't know... AAA isn't really THAT hard for a student who's able and dedicated enough. And even that aside, since that's the uni and not the union, he still wasn't smart enough to realise the president of a debating society can't celebrate the murder of an opponent without backlash, that it isn't appropriate? And then fights tooth and nail to hang on rather than resigning, even though he supposedly hates the place? So he actually doesn't even understand what he's done wrong?

It's just starting to seem like he isn't clever enough, either with books or the general smarts, to be there and he isn't honest enough either.

so what is his 'core value' - might is right?