Vernal Scott is the head of Equality and Diversity at my old place, Oxford University. And as you can see below he only believes in free speech for folks he agrees with.
Yesterday the Mayor of Brussels sent in Police to shut down The National Conservatism conference where seakers included Nigel Farage, Viktor Orban, a democratically elected head of state, and our own Suella Braverman MP. That ruling was illegal and has now been overturned by a court in Belgium. It was also the sort of thing one expects from a Fascist or hardline Communist state, where those of an alternative view are gagged.
Universities used to be bastions of free speech. But try going to Oxford these days to state that women cannot have dicks, that maybe migration is not always a force for good or that having a group in society of whom 75% think homosexuality should be illegal and a third want Sharia law for all is a bit of a problem and folks like Vernal will have you drummed off campus. Just as he applauds the gagging of Farage and Sue Ellen. I would not have enjoyed some of the things they said. I remember wincing at comments by Farage at a conference I organised. But I would not judge him without hearing his speech first and I certainly would not gag a man who will soon be leading a party that could just come second in terms of votes at the next election.
In my day, a long long time ago, the left at Oxford was pretty oppressive. Poor old Norman Stone, married to my Uncle’s ex wife and so a friend, was always getting into trouble for what he said as well as for his sexual antics and drinking. But Stone would have not lasted a term at the Oxford of today, an oppressively woke Madrassa.
Folks like Vernal, who joined Oxford after spending three years running the Diversity & Inclusion unit at the Essex Fuzz, would have led torchlight parades to burn his books and to demand that he be no platformed for his Wrong Think.
And they would have revelled in how virtuous they were for doing so.
