Uproar as Reform policy chief threatens to defund Welsh university
Martin Shipton
Reform UK’s head of policy Zia Yusuf launched a culture war in Wales by threatening to withhold funding from Bangor University after its student debating society refused to host two leading figures from his party.
Under the heading “Reform UK are not welcome at Bangor University”, the university’s Debating and Political Society issued a statement that said: “The Debating and Political Society received a request from Jack Anderton and Sarah Pochin MP of Reform UK to attend Bangor University and give a Q&A to students. In line with our values, this request was refused.
“We stand by this decision as a committee. We have zero tolerance for any form of racism, transphobia or homophobia displayed by the members of Reform UK. Their approach to the lives of others is antithetical to the values of welcoming and fair debate that our society has upheld for 177 years.
“We are proud to be the first of the debating unions to take a stand against Reform UK. We strongly implore our fellow societies to join us in keeping hate out of our universities.”
Anderton is a young social media adviser to Nigel Farage who has suggested that 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.
Sarah Pochin won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election in May 2025, taking the seat from Labour by six votes. She was forced to apologise after stating: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.”
‘Racist’
Yusuf responded to the debating society with an angry post on X that said: “Bangor University have [sic] banned Reform and called us ‘racist, transphobic and homophobic’.
“Bangor receives £30 million in state funding a year, much of which comes from Reform-voting taxpayers. I am sure they won’t mind losing every penny of that state funding under a Reform government. After all, they wouldn’t want a racist’s money, would they?”
For many, Yusuf’s comments evoked comparisons with the behaviour of President Trump in the US, who has sought to defund what he regards as left-wing universities, including some of the most iconic like Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Columbia University in New York.
Nick Webb responded: “It’s not a university ban. It’s one small group of students who’ve decided they don’t want to host you – as is their right.”
Former Bridgend Labour council leader Jeff Jones answered Yusuf with a post stating: “What an idiotic thing to say. This is the UK in 2026, not Italy in 1922 or Germany in 1933.”
Rhys Llwyd wrote: “As a Bangor PhD graduate, I fully support the decision. “Threatening to withhold funding while showing zero grasp of the institution’s origins or philosophical tradition only underlines why the far right is a threat to our Welsh way of life.”
Plaid Cymru councillor Gareth Parry, from Bangor, wrote: “@ZiaYusufUK threatening Welsh universities for their student debating socs making their own decisions? That’s not patriotism. That’s petty authoritarianism with a Union Jack filter.”
Somebody with the handle lunaperla wrote: “Just a man who’s never been elected to anything threatening to defund a university because he’s too stupid to know the difference between the university and a student organisation.”
Huw L Williams wrote: “We’re so far gone that people can’t conceive of the fact that some legitimately regard a toxic party led by a racist who is adjacent to Trump as being beyond the pale – and the fact that they have a handful of MPs does not give them some form of immunity from moral opprobrium.”
‘Nazi vibes’
Sam Smith-Higgins wrote: “Quite the statement from Reform. A Reform Gov. would not fund a university who didn’t agree with them. Where have we heard that before? Nazi vibes. What scary times we live in.”
Bryant Bradshaw wrote: “They made their decision very clear. They fundamentally disagree with the policies of Reform and do not want to promote messages they fundamentally disagree with. A Supreme Court ruling in the Asher Baking Company case in 2018 protects society’s right to do that.”
The court held that people in the United Kingdom could not legally be forced to promote a message they fundamentally disagreed with.
Perhaps ironically, the court ruled in favour of a bakery in Northern Ireland whose Christian owners refused to decorate a cake displaying the slogan “Support Gay Marriage”.
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I expect they’ve been sending such ‘requests for invitations’ everywhere with the precise hope of getting this response. Better to just ignore them.
Sorry, no free speech for fascists.
Anyone shocked? They push hate and division and want this, this was never about “debate” it’s about creating a narrative.
Pochin’s outburst was a vile racist rant. Farage did not withdraw the whip. And we know farages mind anyway.
And Anderton sounds a right know it all charmer intent on re writing history, the Allies stood up to people doing what farage joked about. His grasp of history seems to come off the back of a cornflake packet.
Da iawn Prifysgol Bangor. Stand firm. We will democratically crush the mind disease that is Deform UK.
Reform don’t like educated people. They’re more capable of scrutiny and questions that Refoem won’t or can’t answer.
I agree with you. So why don’t University Students want to debate Reform and try to win arguments? There is nothing to be afraid of here. Reform is just another populist party (we have plenty!) claiming that we can have all the cake and eat it. Their platform is shallow and can be exposed by debate yet too many seem terrified to take them on. In the run-up to the Senedd elections we need as much debate as we can get. I’m yet to hear any plausible plans from any of the parties. Labour seems shellshocked, the Tories have lost… Read more »
Because they are mud slingers, hate paddlers and all round nasty. They will not debate, it will be sound bites so they can clip it up. This “debate” thing is what they want to push division. We know what Pochin stand for, she said it out loud.
Instead of the these, lets hear the candidates. Not farage or that racist woman and idiotic influencer, let’s hear the candidate with no farage to tell them what to say.
What politician doesn’t clip up soundbites? What you are really saying is that you don’t want to hear opinions that you don’t agree with. Why is that? Have the courage to let these people speak out and let everyone hear what everyone has to say. Banning certain opinions in case people like them is the exact opposite of what it is to be an open, democratic society. Have courage in your own arguments and their ability to win people over.
They can do their debating already. Set up a web stream with Pochin or whoever. Every Friday they invite a different University student population to a debate. Doesn’t need to physically be in Bangor. There, infinite debate, they can speak out all they want and people can join or not join. They don’t have any right to be heard.
Pochin previous.
“ads full of black and asian people drive me mad”
Why I would not agree with that opinion, I never know. She is entitled to that opinion, it is not being banned.
She demanded audience here, this is a fishing trip.
It’s literally impossible to successfully debate people who lie and lie and lie. Nobody honest can keep up with it. They’ll invent some specious example which ‘proves’ their point and nobody can debunk it on the spot.
It’s called the firehose of falsehood. Debate just gives them an extra platform and they’ve got plenty of those already.
Reform politicians are politicians like they all are. For example, we’ve just spent the best part of 5 years with a slew of parties making all sorts of nonsensical claims about biological facts not being real. The tide on that has only turned through debate and exposing factually incorrect assertions with transparent debate.
Untruths, exaggerations and vague language are in the toolboxes of all politicians (not only Reform) and the more we debate and challenge, the less useful those tools become to all of them.
The tide on *that*, if I read you correctly, was ‘turned’ (among a minority of people) via UK/US thinktanks demonstrably funded by Epstein and associates. He at least got the ball rolling.
I am trans and continue to exist, despite the best efforts of the worst people in the world.
Everything they do is designed to get a rise out of people so they can play the victim if someone responds the way they want them to.
Notice how when people call them racist, they cry foul. However when people call them grifters and con artists (a much more accurate description) they stay eerily quiet.
Given how many young people dislike reform, this could do Bangor the world of good for next years recruitment cycle!
Its worrying that this University is trying to shut itself off from discussion and debate. What is learning about if it isn’t broadening horizons, challenging viewpoints and widening understanding? I won’t be voting Reform but to claim it represents politics that are too toxic to even discuss is plain daft, especially when we already tolerate some pretty bizarre far left ideas on the curtailing of womens rights and attitudes to Jewish people which run very close to the line of respectability.
*there it is* – the euphemistic “curtailing of women’s rights hem hem”. You absolutely will be voting Reform.
“Bangor University have [sic] banned Reform…”
My biggest worry is that these people regularly reveal themselves as having the intellectual powers of a potato, yet there are still those in our society clamouring to vote for them. We must not be complacent.
Debate is the answer. Expose the fact that Reform has nothing to offer. This idea of treating them as if they some sort of Voldemort with terrifying dark powers is massively over-egging what Reform actually is. Scratch the surface, and there is nothing of any depth there. Trust people to hear the debate and form their own conclusions.
Wrong decision. People like Reform are exposed by scrutiny and debate. Their campaign in Caerphilly was killed stone dead by the lady in the debate’s audience. That’s the way to do it. This just turns them into “victims”.
Just on a category point – that sort of debate is not what a debating society does.
An artificial distinction in my opinion.
Reform have a democratic right to spout their bile, Bangor Debating Society have a democratic right not to give them a platform to do so. Up yours Yusuf, to misquote a Sun headline.
A democratic right to not engage in democratic debate? That’s a dark road to travel that one.History tells us that we are mostly better off confronting opponents and beating them through winning the debate. Letting sunlight in is always better than hiding in the shadows.
So when Reform refuses Nation.Cymru entry to their press conferences, that’s ok?
Absolutely correct. Once exceptions to democracy creep in, you have no true democracy. It’s very dangerous.
This guy Anderton is more than precious
He sets out his stall to the venue the condition he requires in order to hod an even
He has the neck to stipulate this.
“For security reasons, IDs will be checked on the door.”
Students on their own campus will object to this for many reasons including
Privacy & data protection issues .
Risk of discrimination or unfair exclusion.
Broader civil liberties concerns.
As others have pointed out, shutting down debate in this way is not the way to handle “undesirable” ideas. It leaves the problem of intolerance unresolved. It will only be overcome by engaging with it and using reason to refute its claims and positions. People generally adopt intolerant views due to ignorance. Education usually brings them around. That requires throwing a light on bad ideas, and showing them to be such. Cancel culture is a blight on our society. It’s as intolerant as those it decries as being intolerant. Go figure.
You’re showing an incredibly simplistic view of what this sort of debate would look like. It’s not an honest exchange of ideas, it’s giving a voice to disingenuous talking points. The debate could run until the end of time and nothing approaching a consensus on truth would ever be in sight.
They can always find a local venue or even an online forum and invite students to debate if that’s really what they want. An open invitation to an online thing every Friday evening. There, all the debate they want. All they need is a Zoom account.
It always raises a smile when people like Yusuf play the ‘free speech’ card and simultaneously fail to appreciate the difference between the student debating society and the University itself. Has he not grasped that the society is merely exercising its own right to deny a platform to a brand of politics that clash with its own ideals, and this has nothing to do with Bangor University itself? Having been thrown off an anti-20mph social media group myself, one which supports a Reform UK policy, for simply pointing out the reduction in injuries since the policy’s introduction, I wonder how… Read more »
Today Mr Yusuf will be mostly eating sour grapes.
“The Debating and Political Society received a request”
That’s not how it works. A university cancelling opinions is when the society *invites* a speaker and this is blocked by the senior administration.
What we’ve got here is a dodgy guy knocking at the door telling you there’s a problem with your roof and they’ll fix it today for cash who gets angry and threatening when you politely decline.