OXFORD STUDENT
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eter Mandelson unsuccessfully lobbied senior Labour figures to mobilise Oxford alumni in his bid to become Chancellor of Oxford University, the latest trove of Mandelson files show. The released materials further show that Mandelson did so while pursuing the role of United Kingdom ambassador to the United States. On 1 June, the Cabinet Office released approximately 1,500 files of documents, emails, and other records relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the United Kingdom ambassador to the United States. The files detail a campaign around
H B Allen Centre Quadrangle. Credit: James Brahm
the 2024 Chancellor election at the University, where Mandelson, a Labour figure, was a candidate, with William Hague as the main Conservative rival. Through WhatsApp messages to Labour ministers, Mandelson lobbied for assistance with his Chancellor campaign. Records show a coordinated effort to register “as many Labour-leaning people as possible” to vote in the election. “Oxford Labour students really want this election to go Labour’s way for the first time in the university’s history,” Mandelson wrote in text messages contained in the files. Continued on page 5
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rofessor Michael Foran (Keble College) has cancelled the remaining lectures in a series discussing the themes of his new book, Sex, Gender Identity, and the Law, following disruption from protestors on 29th May. At the beginning of his lecture, following the protest, Foran stated that “it is a shame that protestors do not want to engage in the exact kind of work that a university is supposed to be engaged in.” On X, Foran later wrote: “I have made the decision to cancel the remaining lectures in the
series as I cannot guarantee for attendees, including students, that further disruption won’t occur,” which he called “deeply lamentable.” Furthermore, he claimed that “in attempting to shame students into deplatforming these lectures, they manifest the antithesis of what a university stands for.” In a video posted online, the group of protestors asserted that they “were there fully within the realms of free speech expression,” and “were not there to intimidate anyone or personally attack.” They stated that “as always happens, we have
been made out to be aggressors impinging on the rights of others”, and noted that “the main result so far is that Michael has a nice article presenting him as the victim, whilst his supporters are calling for us to be kicked out of the University. So much for preserving access to education.” In a statement to The Oxford Student, the protestors stated that “protest is not anti-intellectual.” They added that the protest created their “own space for expression,” as opposed to challenging Foran in a Q&A. Continued on page 3
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eform has famously been on the rise and much has been attributed to the salience of the so-called ‘immigration issue’. This sentiment seems to be prominent here in Oxford too, as was revealed to me at the counter-rally to the Stop the Far Right protest by the local group, the Oxfordshire Patriots. Yet, the issue of immigration is also mired in opaqueness and controversy: neither the Conservative governments, nor the current Labour government have formulated a clear immigration policy (beyond Rishi attempting to send them to Rwanda, I suppose); the media have bombarded us with
talk of immigration, but a lot of the coverage has been sensationalist; and, at the local level protests like the one I attended have become more common-place. It has come to a point where we have to accept that this is part of our political reality today, as is Reform (and the Greens!) a real competitor to the traditional parties. But what our media discourse seems to lack, and what became clear from my interview with an Oxfordshire Patriots protester, is a nuanced interrogation about what kind of immigration we approve of and oppose as a country. Continued on page 4