What should have been a celebration of free speech during an evening of rigorous debate at Durham University, turned into a tale of cowardice, intimidation, abandonment, tears, and fear. Rather than stand up to masked anti-Israel thuggery, Durham University *chose* to abandon its own students – leaving them caged and fearful inside the debate hall – as a mob banged on doors, hurled vicious abuse, and called for the violent destruction of Israel.

(Note: two of the speeches that were intended to be given on the night  – along with legal discussion of the incident – have (thanks to UKLFI) been made available for online viewing).

Intro – the debate and the proposition

A few months ago, I was asked if I would be prepared to travel to Durham to take part in a student union debate. I admit to being sceptical. My experience with the university space is not great. Previous debates I had scheduled were cancelled when opposing speakers pulled out. I was literally on a train to Glasgow for a debate at the University of Strathclyde when I was told the opposing speaker had decided to withdraw.

Cowards all – and so for a while I gave up trying.

But my conversations with the students at Durham could not have been more convincing. These are good people, and this was Durham Union Society, with a long history of promoting free speech behind them. I was assured the event would go ahead. In addition, I also knew of Chris Doyle – the head of the opposing team. We may disagree about almost everything, but he is not a cowardly, blind activist sort.

And the clinching argument? I would not be going alone. I would be standing alongside the UKLFI’s force of nature Natasha Hausdorff, and former MEP, Lance Forman. How could I possibly resist?

The Durham University encampment

I had given a talk at Leeds Leads Against Antisemitism on the Thursday, and so travelled to Durham alone as my teammates made their way up from London. Upon arrival – as I do – I went to have a look at the local anti-Israel crowd. In this case the Durham University encampment – a sad little gathering of mostly unoccupied tents sitting on Palace Green – directly outside the debating chamber .

The encampment began on May 10, The university posted an official response in which (unbelievably) they claimed they would leave it standing because they ‘robustly uphold’ the right to free speech. From what we know following the cowardly cancellation of our debate – that is simply a risible claim. As a sign of the total decay of modern academia, 260 members of the Durham faculty signed an online statement of support with the encampment.

It is notable that not one of these 260 staff appears to have since spoken publicly against the actions of the encampment that led to the denial of free speech on campus, and the intimidation and abuse of Durham students. The cancer has clearly spread far at Durham University.

As a sign of how bad the faculty has fallen down the rabbit hole. After the event was cancelled – Alice Nah – Associate Professor, Sociology and Co-Director of the Human Rights and Public Law Centre at Durham did not condemn the denial of free speech – nor the abuse some Durham students received. Instead she stood in solidarity with the masked thugs, reposting their post-action statement.

Encampments are not ‘random’ acts of protest by students. The influence almost always comes from outside – especially on a campus like Durham with little historic activity. This particular group ‘Durham Students for Palestine’ did not even exist until it was created to set up the camp. The accounts on Twitter, Insta and TikTok – all opened in May 2024. These are highly organised national networks chiefly put together by members of extremist Islamist  and Marxist groups  – who then recruit local naive virtue signallers to stand alongside them. They have operational manuals, local logistical assistance – and are immediately supported by local hard left groups:

Soon after setting up, ‘camp’ leaders hand the university a long list of impossible demands. Sadly – as we have seen across the country, the university invariably chooses to engage with the organised protests rather than clean out the masked thugs.

These are intelligent and dangerous movements, creating a situation on the ground where UK students are pushed into seeing extremist groups such as CAGE – as allies. Going through the Durham Student pages, I see CAGE all over them. It is a process of radicalisation taking place under the noses of campus officials.

Protesters from inside and out

On top of the few obvious resident protestors from the encampment, ‘rent-a-mob’ groups like Newcastle PSC were calling for people to bus in and protest. Not a student protest then – but an imported masked mob standing against Durham students and free speech.

The fact the majority of protestors were not students from Durham is not a secret. This group also from Newcastle:

‘Shut Down Rafael Newcastle’. Another non-Durham based, non-student group, that told its followers to turn up to deprive Durham students of their freedoms:

The Durham university event burns

When we gathered for a meal before the event, we already knew the protest was gathering pace. We sat with the other speakers, alongside the President of the Student Union, and a few other key members of the group. We watched as the messages began to be received from outside and the tension level began to grow.

Even this part of the evening was outrageous. These are students simply holding a debate. Yet the university delegated the stress and decision making to the students. This should have been a process between the police and the university that resulted in the event taking place – whatever decisions needed to be made along the way. Instead, the university just passed the buck. But these students were not responsible for the mess created by the decision to allow the encampment to remain – the university was. The university role is to ensure the environment is student friendly. Masked thugs cannot be allowed to rule our streets.

We sat and watched the students growing more and more concerned with each passing minute.

At the protest itself masks were everywhere. These protestors are gutless cowards who hide their identity. As they gathered they closed off the venue by forming a human chain around the entrances – thus ensuring there was no way in for either the speakers or the guests. The students told us they had explicitly asked for university security or the police to protect the entrances so this human chain would not be allowed to happen. Even this basic and obvious advice was completely ignored:

The hidden identities are not an accident. In footage they upload – in which masks are not in place – they colour out the faces:

As we sat for dinner we soon learned that part of the reason for the growing anxiety of the organising students was the fact 10 of their fellow students, who had gone ahead to set up the venue for the event, were now trapped inside with an aggressive crowd hurling abuse at them from the outside.

How Durham University abandoned its students

Inside the restaurant, the Durham students were beginning to leave the table at frequent intervals and for increasingly longer periods. The Durham Union Society President Matthew Brooker was engaged in constant communication with the university. We understand most of that communication was with Dr Shaid Mahmoud, Pro Vice Chancellor (Equality, Diversity & Inclusion) of Durham University.

We were told we had to wait for instructions – because there were fears for our safety if we went outside.

Then came a crucial moment. One that DEFINES the evening. The Durham Union Society President was given a choice. He was told that if he wanted the event to continue, he needed to give the green light to the university – so the university would then inform the police that these people were trespassing – at which point the police would move them on.

We were with Matthew as he received this message. He asked for everyone’s opinion. We were unanimous in giving support for the event. None of us had any intention of allowing the thugs to win.

Matthew gave the university the green light. The event was going ahead.

Fifteen minutes later we received word the event had been cancelled. Matthew and the other students had been played. They had no real say in the matter at all. We were informed that the cancellation decision had ultimately been made by Dr Shaid Mahmoud

Terrorist supporters and the radical left

I believe that if people are going to aggressively shut down free specch on campus – we have a right to know who they are. The police for whatever reason think differently and are happy with masked thugs taking actions on campus.

Masks make it impossible to identify people – which begs the question of how do we know how many protestors were actually students – and how many were from local rent-a-thug groups. Or more to the point – how could the police know?

But a few were identifiable. Take this guy:

In the image he is at an anti-Israel protest in Newcastle on 27 April. The flag he is holding is a PFLP flag. The PFLP is a proscribed terrorist group in places such as Canada, Japan, the US and EU. From his posts we can clearly see he is connected with the university encampment.

From footage I found he was at the protest outside the debating chamber. He is a hard left activist who went on a Cuba solidarity mission last year and is not a Durham student.

He reposted this, calling the October 7 atrocities ‘humane’, ‘morally just’ and described it as a ‘hostage rescue operation’. Simply vile:

And this self explanatory celebration of October 7:

For those interested his name is Jordan Milner.

This the ideology that Durham University is protecting and defending. While it cancels the rights of students who seek academic discussion – it defends the rights of invading terrorist supporters.

Ben Sellers, activist and Corbyn’s social media assistant from 2017  was also there. Hardly a student either. He too was using his social media platform to advertise the event, calling people down. He proudly posted a video of people singing ‘long live the intifada’ – hoping they had stopped the event – and celebrated when they did so.

These outsiders managed to help close down a student debate on campus.

Two simple and obvious questions:

1. Why is the university allowing terrorist supporting outsiders to trespass and trample on the rights of Durham’s own students?
2. How are the police permitting unidentifiable masked thugs to close down university events?

Have we completely lost our minds!

Inside the room

The abuse thrown at the ten Durham university students caged inside the venue is inexcusable. They were trapped there for 2.5 hours. Watch this footage. The police and security ALLOWED for Durham students to be abused and threatened in this manner by a group of masked thugs – many of whom do not even go to the university.

 

In the video you can also hear abuse shouted explicitly at Moab Ramadan – a student at Durham and one of the opposition speakers. He was abused at the encampment the day before:

“Mohab Ramadan is an active member of the Durham Union and a vocal pro-Palestinian speaker on campus. He has been involved with the protester’s encampment on Palace Green since its foundation. On Thursday (06/06/24) afternoon, Mohab went to the encampment on Palace Green to read his speech and ask for feedback from his fellow campaigners. To his surprise he received threats from members of the encampment. He was called a “Zionist pig”, “a traitor” and told to “f**k off and never come back”.” Taken from the Durham student press release

At this point I can return to the invading terrorist supporter we had identified – Jordan Milner. This is what he posted:

And here Durham University runs into serious trouble. Mohab Ramadan is a Durham student with Egyptian heritage who was due to take part in an event on campus. ‘Jordan’ is not a student – but comes to the university and helps to close down his event – even referring to Mohab as a ‘Zionist collaborating scab’.

Note also Jordan explicitly refers to non-student ‘comrades’ in his post.

How has Durham University not protected their own students when activists have invaded the campus explicitly to cause trouble and abuse Durham students?

And make no mistake about the support for terrorism. Look at this video. People on a university campus in the UK singing a genocidal chant that calls for the continuation of an ‘intifada’ – the brutal massacres of civilians in Israel.

If this passes without comment or action from the police or university, British Jews may just as well pack their bags.

The aftermath

Following notification of the cancellation, we sat and waited for the trapped students to emerge. Eventually we were moved from the restaurant to a nearby room. At this point some of the ten students who had been locked away joined us. I spoke to two female students – both visibly shaken – both in tears.

They described to us the trauma they had experienced – that can clearly be seen in the first video above. It was heartbreaking to listen to. This is not something anyone could easily move on from.  How on earth did Durham university allow that disgraceful behaviour to take place? They sat and did nothing as their own students were abused – they simply abandoned them.

An important note. The students we had the pleasure of meeting – Matthew- those alongside him – and then those who had been trapped – all did themselves proud. And as bad as Durham University was – the Durham Union students themselves were examples of decency, integrity & courage. They deserve far better than the university gave them.

Durham University – shifting the blame

It gets worse. Following the cancellation and the immediate negative publicity that rightly followed such a weak and cowardly move – Durham University issued a statement that was full of distortion and falsehood.

The statement suggests the event was held (lie), that it went ahead (another lie) that the event was underway (yet another lie). Durham University suggests that they made ‘appropriate security arrangements’, which given the event was called off because of a few masked thugs is a risible comment.

The statement even outrageously suggests that ‘Durham Union Society’ accepted the reasons for this decision. Nonsense. We were there. We know what happened. These are students who were both betrayed and abandoned by the university they pay a fortune to attend. Why not ask them what they REALLY THINK – and put that in the statement.

The university dragged several speakers 100s of miles to speak at event – they had a duty of care – and yet NOT ONE university official bothered to contact the speakers to check on our welfare or inform us of the reasoning behind the cancellation. They left it up to their own betrayed students to endlessly (and needlessly on their part) apologise. What disgraceful and shameful behaviour. And in the statement they dared to pretend they had only postponed – not cancelled the event – as if I (not speaking for the others but imagine they would agree) have any intention of returning given the behaviour we experienced.

I think the most amusing post-cancellation statement came from the bigoted, fascist encampment thugs themselves. They actually put out a statement legitimising their actions by suggesting free speech is not a licence for unopposed dissemination of harmful ideologies.

Can they be any less self-aware? Any more stupid? If these people actually are Durham University students then I advise EVERY PARENT to avoid this campus. It is clearly doing an awful job of educating its students. They do not even know what a debate is. The very definition is about putting opposing arguments forward. And secondly the only people promoting harmful ideologies and spreading fake narratives through countless lies at Durham University – while simultaneously aggressively ensuring the silencing of all opposing voices is the encampment. Take a long hard look in the mirror guys. That’s what fascism looks like today.

 

Help support the fight against antisemitism.

My research is unique and hard hitting.

I battle back against those who seek to revise history, demonise Israel –  and I expose antisemitism wherever it is found. I fight when others don’t. The results speak for themselves and for ten years I have been exposing hate and creating headlines.

Please help If you can, consider making a donation. Your help makes it all possible.

You can make PayPal donations using the donate button below.

Or by using my Paypal.,me account.

If you wish to provide regular monthly support you can also do this via my Patreon page

Every contribution is truly appreciated