Twelfth Night delights p.25
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Thick of It writer Simon Blackwell p.10 No.941 Friday 23rd January 2026 varsity.co.uk The Independent Student Newspaper since 1947 ▲ Amika Piplapure
Meet the vets ‘fighting tooth and nail’ p.16 Conservative Association drops ‘far right’ speaker Calum Murray and Duncan Paterson Editor-in-Chief and News Correspondent
The Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) has cancelled an upcoming event with YouTuber Tom Rowsell after the Cambridge University Labour Club (CULC) claimed that he was linked to the “far right” in a statement attacking the choice of speakers on the society’s term card. In a term card published on Sunday (18/01) CUCA invited Tom Rowsell, a YouTuber accused of links to “eugenicists”, and Jack Anderton, an adviser to
Reform UK who has previously said the UK should “regain” its former colonies, to address members. Following condemnation from the Cambridge University Labour Club (CULC), CUCA has cancelled Rowsell’s appearance, though Anderton is still due to speak. Responding to CUCA’s termcard, CULC quipped that CUCA had become the “Cambridge University Eugenics Platformers”, and described Rowsell as a “self-professed far right heathen” with “documented links” to neo-Nazis and eugenicist organisations. They also criticised Anderton for comments it said
included suggesting that Britain was wrong to fight Nazi Germany. The club has called for those responsible for the invitations to resign. Rowsell is best known for producing content on YouTube about Indo-European history and paganism, and is also the leader of the Hearth of Devon, an ‘Odinist’ pagan worship group. While such groups are not always political, reports suggest that far-right groups are increasingly using pagan symbols and discussing mythology Such groups are linked with the Odinist Rite organisation. While the Odi-
nist Rite claim to be apolitical, experts in British ‘heathenry’ movements have reported on a number of far right symbols present in its materials. In one video, published last year, called “What is English Identity?” Rowsell criticised ‘left wing’ efforts to “deconstruct our very identity […] and undermine the idea of identity itself, particularly for the English people.” He argued that there was a continuous English ethnic group based on “genetic continuity”. According to the campaign group Hope Not Hate, Rowsell attended a gathering in December 2023 of the pri-
vate members club Neo-Byzantium, a branch of the eugenicist organisation Human Diversity Foundation. Rowsell responded to CULC’s statement in a post on X, calling it a “cancelculture attack” and named Hope not Hate a “Labour funded, far left, antiwhite hate group”. He denied all allegations that he had expressed racist or eugenicist views, or made use of far-right symbols, and stated that he hoped “this invitation can be reconsidered based on evidence rather than assumptions”. Continued on page 3 ▶
● ʻInsidiousʼ Israel trip condemnded pg.3 ● Zhimo’s Cambridge in translation pg.25 ● Embrace the ugly pg.26