Peter Tatchell

Anti-fascist campaigners are calling for the Oxford Union to drop a far-right leader and “racist” historian from speaking at their event next week.

On Monday, November 26, Oxford Union plan to hold a free speech debate with key speaker Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP) who is renowned for his racism and promotion of Islamophobia.

The union have also invited David Irving, a Holocaust revisionist historian who was labelled a racist and anti-semite by a British judge in 2006.

Anti-fasicist groups including the National Assembly Against Racism (NAAR) and Unite Against Facism (UAF) have joined in calls to stop Griffin and Irving from speaking.

A spokesperson from UAF, said that they were also concerned that Lib Dem anti-racist campaigner, Dr Evan Harris, was still intending to join the debate.

UAF said: “We are concerned that a politician should still want to join the platform to this debate. To stand on the same platform as some of these people gives them the idea to say they can’t be dangerous if they are joining a political platform with a mainstream politician.”

Kulveer Ranger, vice-chairman for cities in the Conservative Party said: “We have freedom of speech and people with extreme views under law have the freedom to express them. However, I don’t think Oxford Union should be a vehicle or give a platform for fascists under the guise that they’re providing opportunity for freedom of speech. By inviting them, to a world renowned institution, they are providing a platform to allow their views to be further communicated.”

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, a Green Party candidate for Oxford East, is one of the people leading the protest. He said that he was “surprised and saddened” that the Oxford Union planned to go ahead with their debate despite opposition from protestors. “I do not agree that any institution is required, in the name of free speech, to proactively promote the purveyors of prejudice,” he said.

President of the Oxford University Students Union, Martin McCluskey, has also called on Oxford Union to withdraw the invites.

In a letter to Oxford Union President Luke Tryl, Tatchell said: “Support for free speech does not oblige the Oxford Union or any other institution to reward these men with a prestigious public platform, which will give them an air of respectability and allow them to espouse their intolerant views.”

He continued: “Free speech is an important human rights issue that should not be cheapened by the sensationalism of parading a pair of right-wing extremists in the chamber of the Oxford Union.”