Category: National Union of Students
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‘No platforming’ homophobes in the 1980s
As it is LGBT+ History Month in the UK this month, I thought I’d share a short story of protest against homophobia in Britain in the 1980s by students at Swansea University. This story can be found in my book No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech. When the…
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‘Fascists don’t obey debating club rules’: The National Organisation of International Socialist Societies and ‘No Platform’ in the 1970s
While researching my book on the history of ‘no platform’, there were some things that I was unable to touch on in the book and some of the documents that didn’t get included in the final draft relate to the National Organisation of International Socialist Societies, the student organisation of the International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party…
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‘Towards 2000’: NUS manifestos of the Revolutionary Communist Party, 1992
This was originally posted on my Patreon here. This is the third instalment in a series of posts on the manifestos of the Revolutionary Communist Students for NUS elections from the early 1990s. The first two are here and here. In 1992, it looks like the RCS put forward to most amount of candidates for…
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Peace in the Gulf! Western forces out! Revolutionary Communist Students manifestos for 1991
This post originally featured over at my Patreon here and is part of some work in progress stuff for the book project on the history of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Following on from my previous post on the Revolutionary Communist Students’ election manifestos for the NUS conference in April 1990, I am writing about the…
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“On the Offensive for a Fighting Union”: Revolutionary Communist Students’ manifestos for 1990 NUS conference
This piece was originally posted over at Patreon. As part of my research into the history of ‘no platform’ at British universities, I came across copies of the manifestos for the Revolutionary Communist Students’ candidates at the NUS conference in April 1990 (alongside some for subsequent years). The RCS was a lively part of the…
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‘No Platform’ and Hizb ut-Tahrir in the 1990s: A piece for WonkHE
Just a quick announcement that I wrote a piece for WonkHE on ‘no platforming’ the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir at British universities in the 1990s, which is an under-explored part of the history of ‘no platform’. You can find the piece here.
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Maoists and Eysenck at LSE, May 1973: Disruptive protest and the prelude to ‘no platform’
On 8 May, 1973, the controversial psychologist Hans Eysenck attempted to deliver a lecture at the London School of Economics, but faced heavy protests from students. A group of Maoists stormed the stage and assaulted Eysenck. Alongside a sit-in the following month to protest a lecture by US academic Samuel Huntington at the University of…
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Forthcoming book – No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech
Very excited to end the year with the announcement that my book No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech will be published next year by Routledge as part of the Fascism and Far Right series. Here is the blurb: This book is the first to outline the history of the…
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15 June, 1974 – ‘No Platform’ and Red Lion Square
15 June, 1974 saw both an emergency conference held by the National Union of Students on the issue of ‘no platform’ and a counter-demonstration against the National Front in Red Lion Square. The two incidents were a pivotal moment for the emergent anti-fascist movement in Britain. Below is based on a passage from my forthcoming manuscript on…
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‘No Platforming’ at Bristol University in the 1980s and Now
The protests against Eric Kaufmann at the University of Bristol last week are part of a much longer history of ‘no platforming’ at the university, stretching back to the 1980s. This research is part of a book that I am writing on the history of ‘no platform’ and free speech at British universities for Routledge’s Fascism and…
New Historical Express 