Oxford Union President-Elect Ousted After Celebrating Charlie Kirk’s Shooting
George Abaraonye, the President-Elect of the Oxford Union, has been ousted following outrage over his celebration of Charlie Kirk’s shooting after 70% of members voted to remove him. The Telegraph has more.
George Abaraonye, who was due to take over as president of the 202 year-old debating society next term, has been forced out following a vote on Saturday.
The Oxford Union published the results of the vote on Tuesday morning. Of 1,746 votes cast, 1,228 [70.3%] were in favour of no-confidence, meaning the no-confidence motion carried. Rules state that at least two-thirds of valid votes must be cast in favour for the motion to be passed.
The outcome of the vote was set to be published on Sunday but the process was delayed over identity checks on proxy votes submitted by alumni.
Sources claimed that close to 1,000 life members of the Oxford Union registered proxy votes against the philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) student last week after an organised push to oust him.
A notice posted at the university read: “As this threshold has been met, the motion of no confidence has been carried.”
Oxford Union officials told the Telegraph the vote count had descended into chaos as they had to check the identity of every proxy vote manually.
The process was temporarily suspended on Monday morning after the Oxford Union’s extraordinary returning officer claimed he was “subjected to obstruction, intimidation and unwarranted hostility by a number of representatives”.
Mr Abaraonye, 20, has contested the results, claiming he “is and remains the President-Elect”. He then claimed the poll was “compromised” and he did not know “if or how many proxy votes have been tampered with”.
The debating society has been engulfed in a free speech row after The Telegraph revealed in September that Mr Abaraonye had shared messages in which he appeared to celebrate the lethal attack on Kirk, a Right-wing US influencer.
The final-year PPE student at University College, Oxford, sent texts to a chat group, including one saying, “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f—— go”, a common celebratory phrase among Gen Z.
Another message, believed to be sent from his Instagram account, said: “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.”
The student had debated Kirk in the Oxford Union chamber months earlier, with the pair exchanging views on marriage, gender norms and toxic masculinity. …
In a statement to the Telegraph last week, he said: “The union is a formative space where students learn, often through error. Making a mistake and growing from it is part of the university experience. For members who know me or have engaged with me since, I hope they see that growth and my commitment to the role.
“Ultimately, the specific outcome [of the vote] is secondary to the principle. The goal is to demonstrate that the Oxford Union will not be bullied by cancel culture and will stand firm in its commitment to free speech, a fair process and reasoned debate.”
After the results were announced, Mr Abaraonye’s team released a statement which read: “This poll was compromised from the moment Moosa Harraj [President of the Oxford Union] and his majority on the Standing Committee brought compromised and untested Poll Regulations.
“George is proud and thankful to have the support of well in excess of a majority of students at Oxford, who voted to have a safe election and resist attempts to subvert democracy.”
Worth reading in full.
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Seems like the current students would have kept him
You have to chuckle that he’s disputing the results – wonder what his view was of the disputed result of the US presidential election in 2020
The fact that this guy was elected as the president of Oxford Union is already a depressing reflection on the state of affairs.
I suspect he’s just a race-baiter agitator with very modest intellectual abilities who jumped on the diversity bandwagon and enjoyed a special protected status, since any criticism directed towards him would have been considered politically incorrect.
I can imagine university professors kowtowing to him and treating his inane ideas with utmost reverence, in fear of losing their careers and the accompanying pension pot.
It’s a bit sad but nothing lasts forever, not even Oxford University’s excellence.
He got in with low grades because of DEI. Admittedly his course is Piss Poor at Everything and there are lots of graduates who have gone on to greater things never mind having a modular degree.
Excellent news! Justice has been done, and Oxford have begun to repair their damaged reputation, thanks to their honourable alumni.
But for him to claim that he “is and remains the President-Elect” shows his true psychopathic nature, and the False Sense of Entitlement lavished upon him by Communist Traitors in the West.
He is no doubt hoping to inspire race riots by his supporters.
Why such a flattering photo of him? Here’s a better one:
How refreshing that there are ‘consequences’ for people’s speech even (or especially) when they thought they were protected from criticism.
Finally!
As Voltaire famously said “Don’t behave like a twat”
I forecast George Abaraonye will get a job with a tax payer funded quango or chaity and soon after he will be adopted as a candidate by one of the left wing political parties or a religious based one. He is well qualified.
Eventually – the Master of an Oxford College.
Don’t know what to think. His comments about Charlie Kirk’s shooting are reprehensible. But I wasn’t in favour of cancel culture before and I’m still not in favour of it now.
The question for me is really whether Abaraonye’s comments about the Kirk shooting reveal anything about him or his character or his views that the Oxford Union members didn’t already know.
If it’s a case that they had all been led to believe that he was a serious, upstanding person of moderate political views only to discover through his recent comments that he’s actually a radical, left wing, insensitive troll, well then fair enough. Vote him out.
But I somehow doubt that is the case. I suspect that when he was elected to lead the Union, the members knew exactly who this guy was, what his political views were and what his character was like. And they are voting him out now to save public face after their poor choice of president has come back to bite them. In which case, the people at the Oxford Union should have the guts to stand up for what they believe and keep him on.
I take your point, however, his stated views reflect disastrously badly on the institution he aspired to lead and it seems reasonable that the alumni should say “no, unacceptable we want him out”.
Nobody is suggesting he should be sent down or interviewed by the fuzz.
Unacceptable would be for example never here kier or even the vice chancellor of the unviversity leaning on the Union to get rid of him but that is not the case, (as far as we know).
According to AI the definition of Free Speech is:
Free speech is the right to express opinions and ideas without censorship or suppression by the government, encompassing the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds through any medium, including speech, writing, print, art, and the internet.
But the definition does not refer to how your employer, your friends, your audience or society might react to your speech (etc.). Now you might reasonably argue that some organisations are ‘government-like’ and should hold to the same definition, but others might choose to censor or supress although limited by slander, libel, employment laws and so on. So cancel culture will probably persist to some extent, but Government and any organisation funded by the State should avoid the temptation.
Not sure this is a free speech issue but about bringing an organisation into disrepute. Terms and conditions with Tesco for example require customers not to do this on social media etc. Otherwise they can expect to have restrictions placed on their custom. No private body should surrender this prerogative.
Cancel culture isn’t imposed by governments. It is imposed by mobs, typically manufactured by a few who manage to whip up a storm and incite anger.
PPE (Piss Poor Education) is the degree the losers seeking a career in politics and government choose.
So this clown one day could well be our PM.
Well the woke virus is still very much entrenched in Oxford Uni ( funny how we don’t tend to hear about Cambridge as much ) as this stupidity shows. All this rebel is doing is pinning famous quotes over trans paraphernalia, such as: ”There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them”. George Orwell.
But this is deemed offensive to the forever victims, it seems;
”A hero in Oxford University’s Biology Department has been putting post-it notes with challenging quotes on top of trans propaganda.
In response, Oxford has launched a “formal investigation into unacceptable defacing”. When the “culprit is caught”, they’ve threatened expulsion.”
https://x.com/JamesEsses/status/1980298054105477172
Is he questioning the results of an election on the basis of poor ID verification? I thought that was racist!