Braverman’s Cambridge cancellation exposes the campus free speech crisis

Anti-fascism ain’t what it used to be. It used to mean signing up to go to fight Franco’s fascists in Spain, turning out against Oswald Mosley in the East End, or trading punches with National Front thugs. Now it means trying to get right-wing Tory MPs no platformed on elite university campuses – and occasionally punching elderly gender-critical women in the face. It’s by turns despicable and pathetic.

The cancellation of Suella Braverman’s event at Cambridge last week – following threats of protest by assorted faux-radical groups, with ‘Cambridge for Palestine’ to the fore – was grimly predictable. Indeed, it follows a pattern that has become all too familiar to students who dare to hold views or host speakers that upset their university’s hysterical, self-appointed censors.

Braverman was invited by the Cambridge University Conservative Association (Cuca), the organisation she herself led, as a Cambridge student, 20 years ago.