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No.943 Friday 20th February 2026 varsity.co.uk The Independent Student Newspaper since 1947
Tamil societies get Union speaker cancelled
Cambridge events funded by Orbán-
● 22 student societies sign letter against event with Sri Lankan politician ● Union accused of betraying ‘values of free speech and open debate’ ● Event cancelled after ‘urgent and serious discussions’
linked foundation Alexander Brian and Ell Heeps Senior News Editors An organisation with links to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Russian oil companies has funded events and student societies at both Cambridge and Oxford, according to a new report. A Good Law Project (GLP) investigation has alleged that the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation (RSLF) has received £512,500 in funding from Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a private Hungarian university, since 2023 – this constitutes 90% of its funding.
The MCC itself is reportedly funded by an endowment of over €1 billion from the Hungarian government, which includes a 10% stake in MOL Group, a Hungarian company that refines oil of primarily Russian origin. In 2023, RSLF signed an agreement in Budapest with MCC, that would enable its students to participate in “academic, literary, and public life” programmes at Cambridge and Oxford. Since then, it has reportedly spent over £190,000 across both universities, including funding student societies, such as the Scruton Society at Cambridge. GLP alleges that RSLF spent £54,458 on its
Cambridge programme in 2024, an increase from £29,185 in 2023. The foundation is named after Roger Scruton, a conservative philosopher and alum of Jesus College, who died in 2020. It was formed in 2021, describing itself as an “international network of institutions and scholars dedicated to furthering the philosophical and cultural achievements of the West championed in Scruton’s work”. The foundation consists of two companies, with a US and a UK board of directors. Professor James Orr, of the Faculty of Divinity, has served on RSLF’s UK board since 2021, while Professor Robert
Tombs, a professor of French History at St John’s College, serves as an academic advisor. The former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove joined the foundation as a director in 2025. In 2023, the foundation invited the American tech billionaire Peter Thiel to speak at Oxford, where he compared equality, diversity, and inclusion initiatives to the Chinese Communist Party. Varsity previously reported that Orr recently hosted Thiel for a series of private talks, entitled ‘The Antichrist Lectures’, in Cambridge. Continued on page 3 ▶
Alexander Brian and Ell Heeps Senior News Editors The Cambridge Union has cancelled a talk with the Sri Lankan politician Namal Rajapaksa, after 22 Tamil organisations signed an open letter condemning the event. The letter expressed the “profound outrage” of the societies at the event scheduled for 27 February, as well as a similar talk at the Oxford Union on 25 February. The Union told Varsity: “The Cambridge Union would first like to confirm that, after urgent and serious discussions, we have made the decision to cancel our event with Mr Namal Rajapaksa which was scheduled to take place next week.” Namal Rajapaksa is the son of the former president and prime minister of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom the societies accuse of being involved in a genocide against the Tamil people. The letter describes Namal Rajapaksa as “a state criminal and heir to genocide” whose “family’s name is synonymous with the destruction of our people”. The coalition of Tamil societies, which includes those at Oxford and Cambridge, argue that hosting Rajapaksa gives “legitimacy to a regime that has consistently denied justice and accountability” and betrays the Unions’ “values of free speech and open debate”. Continued on page 3 ▶
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