It seems that something of a nightmare is gripping the city of dreaming spires. Over at the Oxford Union – the supposed nursery of our nation’s leaders – the new Union president-elect is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Last month, George Abaraonye sparked outrage after appearing to celebrate the death of Charlie Kirk. Then, on Saturday he took the rather unusual step of triggering a no-confidence vote in his own leadership. An unorthodox move to say the least…
Alumni had planned to launch a no-confidence motion against Abaraonye on Tuesday, so this manoeuvre appears to be a way of beating them to the punch. Perhaps Abaraonye had been reading up on John Major’s 1995 resignation, telling the ‘bastards’ to ‘put up or shut up’. The vote will take place in Oxford in three days’ time, and is open to former members of the society, some of whom are reportedly considering travelling in from as far away as Hong Kong and New York to take part.
As a way of perhaps trying to get his ‘side’ of the story out, Abaraonye has made his first media appearance since the incident on the ‘What’s Left’ podcast, appearing alongside Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, the failed Labour candidate for Clacton at the last election. During the almost two-hour long discussion, Abaraonye tried to contextualise his ‘reaction’ within the ‘political climate that Charlie Kirk spoke in, the political climate the Charlie Kirk stoked’, and continued that Kirk’s rhetoric was ‘harmful’. Hardly remorseful..
But Mr S can bring some amusement to this sorry tale of woe. Abaraonye’s decision to submit the no-confidence motion in himself means that, in accordance with the rules, he must be CC’d on every email to the Returning Officer for signatures to be valid. Given that the threshold of 150 signatures has been exceeded, that means dozens of emails from voters critical of Abaraonye have now been bombarding his inbox in recent days.
Who needs to own the left when they do it so well themselves?
Comments