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

[BonfireLady]

Well, that's quite a turn up for the free speech books!

When the president-elect of the Oxford Union debating society hit the headlines with his awful celebration of a violent assassination, I hoped that he would be declared unfit to run it. Yes, I support free speech, including the right to offend. However, he is president-elect of a debating society and is simply not fit for the role if he's advocating assassination in place of debate. Charlie Kirk was killed while debating. Specifically while answering a question about trans(-identifying) people, by a young man who is/was in a romantic relationship with a (transwo)man.

It seems like this university is waking up to the idea that critical thinking is a good thing. Please keep thinking Oxford Union...... 🤞

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/14/oxford-union-alumni-descend-city-oust-president-elect/

He's written quite a lengthy statement and this was included:

When a national columnist explicitly calls for you to be shot, and your family receives threats, it creates an environment where reasoned debate cannot exist.

Obviously it's appalling that his family received threats but which national columnist explicitly called for him to be shot? Does anyone know? That sounds rather far-fetched and I would hope that this isn't what happened.

Edited for clarity.

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

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.

From twitter

What a fucking shambles

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.

@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."

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/

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)

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?

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.

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

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

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?

...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

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

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.

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.

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.

Those answers were largely written by AI.

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

Less and less impressive the more we look.
Add in The Good Law Project as support and he has nothing going for him.
Maybe he is simply aiming to be a wrecking ball. He's only 20.

I asked Chatgpt to analyse AI input of both sets of answers, and it suggested that the woman's seemed to have more AI input than George's, fwiw.

Is this all confirmed?

I am wondering if it's a disruption tactic and especially weird that he propose the vote himself. Nobody would do that unless they had an actual plan to cause disruption. I'm actually puzzled that it's allowed but whoever makes the rules probably never thought that somebody would propose a vote of no confidence in themselves.

I think I said at the beginning of this thread that it was a super weird thing to do

Unfortunately, this site is playing up so much I can't scroll back to check what I said!

how is the Oxford union funded? I wonder it can't just be from membership subscriptions.

If all this is true, I feel very sorry for the returning officer.

Subs, donations from alumni and sponsors, and use of the buildings.

It's all true: he asked for this vote, and the RO is now alleging misbehaviour, and banning observers from the proxy vote count. (GA's faction previously tried to prevent proxy voting altogether.)

GA seems purely an agent of chaos right now. Or maybe he thinks he'll win, and anyway if he loses he'll be some kind of martyr, and he'll have the names of the alumni who voted against him, some of whom might be famous. Its a battle of the generations narrative.

I wondered if he was just arrogant enough to think the students would vote him in again, and didn't consider the alumni.

Piece in The Telegraph

Vote on Oxford Union president in chaos over ‘intimidation’ of officials

@theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw thank you. So the donation issue is going to be massive.

I don't think it would make him into a martyr. it would be a huge feather in his cap, if you're that sort of person, (!) if he brought down the institution in some way.

People are very sceptical when I say this on here, but there is absolutely a school of thought in existence on the left, possibly not formalised, about disruption for the sake of disruption. I think the argument is that it's easier to create the institution in the shape that you want it to be, if you have completely destroyed it. So an anti-reform idea because reform is not what they want.

You could argue that some businesses are taking the same approach. Then again, I thought Jaguar knew what they were doing with that advert, I thought they had planned it out - and now it seems they didn't really have a concrete plan for a rebrand.