Rees-mobbed… Pro-Palestinians chase MP after university speech
SIR Jacob Rees-Mogg was chased off a campus by pro-Palestine activists on Friday night, becoming the latest victim of their radical takeover of British universities.
The senior Conservative MP was mobbed by protesters shouting ‘Tory c***’ and ‘shame on you’ as they battled with his security after an event at Cardiff University.
The former business secretary was escorted into a car as protesters carrying Palestinian flags crowded around him.
Sir Jacob – who had been addressing Conservative students – yesterday praised the university’s ‘excellent’ security team while defending the right of the activists to demonstrate.
He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Even if they did apparently shout rude words at me, the demonstrators were entirely within their rights to protest, just as I had a right to address the university’s Conservative Society.’
But party chairman Richard Holden branded them ‘morons’ and said:
‘The activists accused Sir Jacob of being a Zionist’
‘Whatever they think their cause is, they do it a disservice.’
It came amid growing fears that student protests sparked by the war in Gaza were getting out of control. Last week, tents were erected by proPalestinian protesters at the University of Warwick and a rally held at University College London, mirroring action across US campuses.
Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s speech at the Oxford Union on Thursday was interrupted by the pro-Palestine Youth Demand group.
The latest action against Sir Jacob was organised by the Welsh Underground Network and Cardiff Communists, two Marxist-Leninist activist groups, who said the MP was a ‘Zionist’. Sir Jacob said that supporting Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ did not make him a Zionist.
A spokesman for the university said it had a ‘commitment to freedom of speech’ but would ‘take appropriate action’ against students found to have mistreated the politician.