This is quite a long twitter thread, but well worth the read
twitter.com/CraigWorman/status/1039451486919553024?s=19
Student politics at Goldsmiths. A hopefully short and insightful thread.
I started the Liberal Society at Goldsmiths after realising there were far more people right of centre than I previously thought. I had never known some people in my classes believed in the same things.
These people had never mentioned what they believed in before out of fear of social rejection.
I hoped to provide a broad church society for anyone right of centre to debate and befriend other like minded people.
I had over 70 people sign up in freshers week.
With around 50 actual members signed up we started organising events. I found this to be extremely difficult as the you have to essentially proof your speaker will not offend people. This is at the discretion of the university who can reject anyone they want.
I started to understand why people had hidden their beliefs. I was branded a Nazi by people once my friends and our events were heckled.
I hosted an event with @bswud from @ASI at the time on bias in the Labour market. This event was attended by our 30 lib members and 7 people from the Palestinian soc and feminist soc who branded the talk, our members and the speaker racist due to comments made by AS in 1700's.
After the talk they heckled my members at the pub (which I had to host it at because we couldn't get a university room) and said that I was a Nazi, calling me out on social media.
These same girls went to all of my lecturers to demand I be prevent from speaking as it violated their safe space. Luckily I was surprised to be defended by some fantastic lecturers who were defenders of free speech. They pointed out that I merely held liberal values.
My society slowly died as young first years students, understandably, did not like being called Nazis and racists. For clarification, the society had people of all backgrounds, genders, faiths and ethnicity.
In sum, Goldsmiths students are rotten to the core. The student body is fashionably extremists and few have any real conviction in their beliefs. This is why I was not shocked by the news today. This is a genuine reflection of the opinions held by the wider student body.
The news today is symptomatic the Goldsmiths SU being run by self declared communists for over 4 years. It's sad but also not limited to Goldsmiths. Its all across the UoL.
On a side note, these people would harass me and my members at the pub and at parties. sadly, some first year members decided to leave the uni after being socially blacklisted and scared of talking in lectures.
Our members were classical liberals, believing in free movement, free trade and low taxes but these things make you a Nazi at Goldsmiths.
END