Craven universities are giving in to a dangerous new student intolerance

Protesters’ refusal to debate rationally reflects a worrying trend in Left-wing militancy

The conceit of our universities is that they’re bastions of free speech, enlightened thinking and eloquent debate. However, at Cambridge last week, rather than engage in coherent, informed discussion about a complex matter, students and pro-Palestinian protesters instead preferred to “cancel” me. Our world-beating higher education system really ought to be a bit better than this.

In recent weeks, encampments protesting against Israel have been set up at many of our top universities. This derivative attempt to mimic the events at Columbia University in New York – where pro-Palestinian student protesters effectively took over the campus, requiring the police to arrest them to restore safety and order – has seen some students at the likes of Oxford, Cambridge and the LSE act out their own stunts.

I visited Cambridge simply to try to talk to some of the pro-Palestinian protesters camped outside King’s College and the University’s Senate House.

Despite the rain, a large group of masked, keffiyeh-clad students (I assume they were students, but you couldn’t be certain) were hanging around King’s Parade. Palestinian flags adorned the walls and placards scribbled with calls to stop arming “Genocidal Israel” were stuck in the mud. “Boycott and Divest” interspersed with “Vegan and Nut-Free food needed”.

I didn’t come armed with any threatening snacks, but what I genuinely wanted to do was find out what was motivating presumably intelligent people to behave in such a way. Taxpayer-subsidised and supposedly the brightest young minds in the country, what was their message to Israel? To Hamas? To the Gazans? Dare I mention, to the hostages, or to the murdered and raped dead?

I was prepared for them to challenge my views, yet what was their response? Silence. This isn’t a joke. People for whom a cause is so dear to them that they’re camped out in the rain in identical tents wouldn’t make that case to someone like me.

Their unwillingness and inability to discuss rationally with others reflects a more worrying trend when it comes to Left-wing militancy. Perhaps they think their arguments are so irrefutable that they don’t even need to make them? And obviously not to someone as unclean as me.

But rewind 12 hours, leave Cambridge, and I was met with a very different reaction from some of their comrades in London.

Outside a Conservative association event in north London where I was the guest speaker, a group of 30 or so pro-Palestinian protesters weren’t as limp as their Cambridge peers. Instead, they barricaded the doors to the venue, shouting for two hours on megaphones “Braverman, you genocidal ----”. All as our fund-raising event continued inside. Intimidation failed to thwart us – and the restaurant owners deserve particular credit for refusing to give into the mob and cancel the event.

What we seem to have is two extremes for one cause: self-righteous objection to the very idea of open discussion by some, and unashamed, uninterrupted harassment and thuggery by others. And on too many campuses, universities are failing to do enough to confront either side of the problem.

We’ve seen the number of reports of anti-Semitism at universities surge since October 7. Cambridge has become a battleground for freedom of speech, with Jordan Peterson having a visiting fellowship withdrawn by the Divinity Faculty, academics hounded out for refusing to bow to identity politics, and Trinity College responding pathetically when a student damaged a portrait of Arthur Balfour.

Effectively ignoring a clear case of criminal damage is a choice made by the people running our institutions, and the implications of this betrayal of responsibility are terrifying. University authorities have refused to maintain order or standards, but plainly only in one direction. We can see you: we can see who you’re giving into and why.

I studied at Cambridge as an undergraduate more than 20 years ago. I still remember the tears in my mum’s eyes when we opened the acceptance letter from Queens’ College. Neither she nor my dad had had a great education or the chance to study for a degree until they were in their 40s, as mature students.

So this was an honour that made their hearts soar. But these days, why should getting into Oxbridge bring such tears of joy?

These universities have become craven indulgers of militant Left-wing politics. The people in charge should be holding the line, rather than pandering to eco-zealots, Black Lives Matter anarchists and pro-Palestinian militants, who are so grossly wrong.

They’ve smugly fostered a climate of fear at our universities, forcing others to pay the price for their cowardice.

Many of the protesters, so intolerant that they wouldn’t even voice their arguments to someone they thought unworthy of hearing them, will end up as the lawyers, doctors and MPs of tomorrow. I fear for my country when the mindset I saw in Cambridge ends up running more serious things than a sanctimonious circus of tents.

They don’t argue because they have no arguments worthy of the name. But that’s not going to stop them telling you what to do.

Suella Braverman is a former home secretary

They’ve fostered a climate of fear at our universities, forcing others to pay the price for their cowardice