Reform UK’s threat to defund Bangor University ‘shows how bullying would be its style in government’

Martin Shipton

Reform UK’s threat to defund Bangor University because a student debating society rejected its demand to host a Q&A meeting featuring one of its MPs indicates the bullying behaviour the party would engage in if it came to power, it has been claimed.

Zia Yusuf, Reform’s head of policy, amplified his attack on Bangor University, wrongly accusing it of responsibility for the students’ Political and Debating Society’s decision not to invite Sarah Pochin MP and Jack Anderton, a young social media adviser to Nigel Farage, onto the university campus.

Ms Pochin became an MP after winning the Runcorn and Helsby by-election in May 2025, taking the seat from Labour by six votes. She was later forced to apologise after stating: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.”

Anderton has suggested Britain would be better off had it stayed neutral in the second world war instead of fighting Nazi Germany, has said the UK should not support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression and has argued that in a future world of “meritocracy”, the UK could “regain” former colonies such as Australia, Canada and South Africa.

Yusuf wrote to the university’s Vice Chancellor, claiming the university was breaking the law by not insisting that Pochin and Anderton should be allowed to hold a meeting.

He stated: “Reform UK has led over 200 consecutive national opinion polls and enjoys the support of almost a third of the electorate. Bangor University receives over £30m of state funding each year, much of it from Reform supporting taxpayers.+”Why should these taxpayers fund a university engaging in such industrial scale indoctrination that its debating society bans a sitting Member of Parliament from participating in a debate?”

Debate

A spokesperson for Bangor University said: “The social media post [stating that Reform was not welcome on campus] was issued by a student society and not by Bangor University. Student societies are created and run by students through the independent Students’ Union. The views expressed by societies are their own and do not reflect University policy. Bangor University remains politically neutral and supports freedom of speech. Bangor University welcomes debate from across the political spectrum.”

Plaid Cymru MS Sian Gwenllian, whose seat covers Bangor, said Yusuf’s comments amounted to an explicit threat to de-fund Bangor University and demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of both the institution and the Arfon constituency.

She said: “Bangor University is one of the major employers in our area. It provides work for hundreds of people and supports a wide local economy, from electricians to academic staff who train the doctors and nurses of the future. To threaten its funding is to threaten the economic and social wellbeing of the whole community.”

She added that such remarks were irresponsible and risked causing unnecessary alarm locally.

“The university is central to the community and economic life of Arfon,” she said. “It was founded through the efforts and sacrifices of the quarrymen of this area, and it remains a source of pride and opportunity for generations of local people.

“Bullying and threatening higher education institutions, in the style we have seen elsewhere, is entirely disgraceful and completely at odds with our values here in Wales. Reform’s comments show they are not fit to govern.”

‘Trump handbook’

Plaid Cymru spokesperson for education, Cefin Campbell MS said: “This is straight out of the Trump handbook – bullying universities and their students, and threatening to undermine the local economies that depend on them.

“Reform don’t care about Wales and they clearly do not understand or have the interests of our communities at heart, or they wouldn’t issue threats like this.”

Reform rushed out a new higher education policy for Wales, with its newly announced leader in Wales Dan Thomas saying a law would be introduced to protect “free speech” in Welsh universities.

But Blaenau Gwent Labour MS Alun Davies said: “There is free speech in this country already and members of the student debating society have exercised their freedom of speech by deciding not to listen to Reform’s bile.

“Bullying is the default mode for Reform, who want to create conflict and division. This is a culture war they have manufactured. Neither of the two individuals from Reform have any connection with Wales. They have deliberately sought to stir up a culture war.”

Dr Rhys Llwyd, a leading minister in the Baptist Union of Wales who holds a PhD from Bangor University, said: “I spent five years studying nationalist ideology in depth at Bangor University. A sustained academic work, reading its sources, arguments, and historical trajectories.

“I’m not blind to the economic anxiety or social dislocation that draws some ordinary people towards Reform. Those pressures are real, and they deserve to be taken seriously rather than mocked or dismissed.”

“But Reform as a political project is a different matter. Its ideological foundations align far more closely with the far-right tradition than with any recognisable form of centre-right conservatism.

“Seen in that light, it’s entirely reasonable for institutions, broadcasters, and individuals to decide not to platform Reform. That choice isn’t censorship — it’s discernment.”