Debating society turns down Reform MP... so party vows to strip entire university of funding

In general, it’s never been the case that you can write to a UK university, demand to give a talk there and expect that demand to be met.

But that’s the case in Reform-world, apparently, where the party is threatening to strip £30 million from a Welsh university after one of its MPs and a social media influencer had their request to speak before students there turned down.

Sarah Pochin, MP for Runcorn and Helsby, and Jack Anderton, a 25-year-old various described as leader Nigel Farage’s “TikTok guru” and “Gen Z whisperer”, wrote to Bangor University in North Wales requesting to speak there as part of Anderton’s ‘A New Dawn’ tour.

The request was turned down by the Bangor Debating & Political Society, which is not affiliated to the university and which said that the party and tour was not “in line with our values”.

Now Farage’s party have taken out the Trumpian playbook and announced that, following the society’s decision, they will punish the entire university and wider community should they triumph in May’s Senedd election!

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Saying they would pull all Welsh Government funding in the event of victory, Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf said: “After all, they wouldn’t want a racist’s money would they?

“Bangor University have banned Reform and called us ‘racist, transphobic and homophobic'”, he added (again – the society is not affiliated to the university). Bangor receives £30m in state funding a year, much of which comes from Reform-voting taxpayers. I am sure they won’t mind losing every penny of that state funding under a Reform government.”

The threat was amplified by Isabelle Oakeshott, the former journalist turned Reform’s Dubai-based cheerleader, who wrote on X: “‘I want to go to Bangor University,’ said nobody ever. Especially if Bangor University is stripped of government funding and student loan facilities by Reform UK. Is that ‘in line with your values, poppets?’”. Woman of the people Oakeshott went to Bristol University, unlike the oiks in Bangor.

Curiously, all of the previous events on Anderton’s ‘A New Dawn’ tour – in Durham, York, Edinburgh and Exeter – have taken place before local Reform societies, except in Cambridge where, intriguingly, it was to the local Conservative Association.

Where will it all end? Will Oxford University be forced to accede to Lee Anderson’s demands to address its philosophy society lest it have all its research funding cancelled? Or will anyone who requests one be granted a slot at next year’s Reform annual conference?