The Debate: This House has Confidence in the President-Elect of the Oxford Union

Should the Oxford Union have confidence in its incoming President, George Abaraonye, whose comments celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder in a private chat were leaked this week? James Price, a former president of the prestigious debating society himself, says certainly not: “You cannot have someone who glorifies in political assassination of a debater run a debate society. This isn’t a free speech issue, it’s a question of propriety.” Toby disagrees: “I don’t think people should be cancelled for posting lawful comments online, however offensive, and that goes double for comments posted in private chat groups.”

Their debate is hosted by City AM – here’s what they have to say.

AYES: Toby Young, Director of the Free Speech Union

I found George Abaraonye’s comments about Charlie Kirk abhorrent and his apology inadequate. Nevertheless, as a member of the Oxford Union, I will not tick the ‘yes’ box in the no-confidence vote, assuming there is one. The bottom line is I don’t think people should be cancelled for posting lawful comments online, however offensive, and that goes double for comments posted in private chat groups.

I don’t hold with the argument that he should go because he’s shown himself to be unfit to do the job or brought the organisation into disrepute. Those criteria are too vague and subjective and, as the Director of the Free Speech Union, I’ve seen them used again and again to justify firing people. I should add that if Abaraonye does hang on it will be easier to defend those people in future – and those calling for his head should bear in mind that 90% of the people who get into trouble for online posts are on the same side as them in the culture war. If the woke Left has mounted a successful campaign to save Abaraonye, conservatives can quote those arguments back to them next time they try to cancel one of theirs. Who knows, perhaps it will make the radical Left re-evaluate their dismissal of the free speech crisis.

If I was Abaraonye, I would do my best to write something thoughtful and constructive about this whole imbroglio in which he reflects properly on what he said and then propose a debate in the coming weeks about whether violence is ever justified in a political dispute in a liberal democracy. I’d be happy to come to the Union and argue it isn’t.

NOES: James Price, former president of the Oxford Union

Debates over free speech have dominated culture wars in recent years. So much so that the logic has become as twisted and contorted as much of the rhetoric. The latest controversy out of my beloved Oxford Union hasn’t just caused paroxysms of fury – it’s instructive about where the limits, and consequences, of free speech may be.

There are a few camps: One: morons who think that it was good for the Union’s President-Elect to say horrible things about the murdered Charlie Kirk because he was Right wing. Two: those who have nobly defended free expression in the past, so reflexively argued that this is yet another censorious campaign to stifle debate. And three: those who, like me, think that what he said has been both disgusting, legal and yet worthy of stripping him of his position. 

Disgusting is obvious; this is a young man who stood opposite Kirk (in slippers), lost gracelessly in debate, and still celebrated his death mere months later.

Legal, because I believe that people should be allowed to say awful things under the law (this has the bonus of flushing out awful opinions into the public square, the better we might understand the ghastliness that lives amongst us).

And worthy of stripping him of his position because of a complementary right to free speech: freedom of assembly. A private organisation, comprising moral adults, has every right to order itself how it wishes. If it wants to prevent heavy-handed state overreach, it should order itself broadly in conformity with accepted cultural norms. 

This cretin contravenes those norms, and the Union should therefore vomit him out. 

You cannot have someone who glorifies in political assassination of a debater run a debate society. This isn’t a free speech issue, it’s a question of propriety, something sorely lacking in the modern world.

Toby won this debate, according to City AM‘s Alys Denby, who declares that “if the next president of one of Britain’s most venerable debating societies is forced out for Left-wing views – however distasteful – the Right will find it harder to assert itself in the future”. Thus City AM “has confidence in George Abaraonye”.

What do you think – do you have confidence in Abaraonye to lead the Oxford Union? Are Toby and Denby right to say it’s a case of cancel culture, with Abaraonye on the block for his “Left-wing views”? Or is Price right to say that celebrating a political assassination is a breach of basic decency and in conflict with the aims of the Union he is set to lead? What should the limits of free speech be in positions of responsibility and employment?

Read the City AM debate in full here – and join in in the comments below.

Stop Press: US Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is not protected by the First Amendment”.