St Andrews Reform Society Event Disrupted Amid Provisional Union-Affiliation Backlash

St Andrews Reform Society has gained provisional affiliation status with the University of St Andrews’ Student Association as of 13 March — a decision which prompted reactions from multiple political societies within St Andrews. 

In a statement issued to The Saint, a Union spokesperson clarified that “an application has been submitted by a St Andrews Reform UK Society to become an affiliated society [...] We are currently reviewing this application in line with our affiliation process.”

Prior to the Society’s provisional affiliation, The Saint spoke with the Society’s President and founder, a first-year student who asked to remain anonymous. He said he initially started the Society because, while there is a Conservative Society in St Andrews, it lacked one focused on Reform. “I thought I’d take this opportunity,” he said.

At the time of the interview on 16 February, there were 29 individuals who had registered interest in the society compared to the initial founding three. 

Upon the announcement of the Reform Society’s provisional affiliation, the group St Andrews Women Against the Far Right (WAFR) launched a campaign attempting to block the Reform Society’s affiliation. Authoring an open letter to the Union, WAFR claimed that allowing Reform to affiliate would be “in complete opposition to the Union’s values of inclusion and equality.” The letter gained 500 votes in two days, according to the WAFR Instagram page.

Reform’s first event took place at the Rule on 13 March. The location was initially advertised on the Society’s Instagram account before then being deleted. The post’s caption then read “DM,” encouraging interested members of the St Andrews community to privately message the account for the event’s details.

Several members of WAFR disrupted this event, which, according to the group, was an occurrence that has since been exaggerated. “There are several points which keep cropping up in the Reform Society's version of events that are hyperbolised to a laughable proportion — namely that a 'large mob' of angry and 'threatening' students 'hijacked' their social,” the group wrote in a message to The Saint. “There were six of us in total, involved in speaking to them, one by one.”

After this encounter, members of Reform Society approached their table, “accused us of being aggressive” and “proceeded to shout at us,” WAFR wrote. They added that someone from the Society made fun of someone at the table with disability-caused tremors. 

According to student Andrew Ibarra, who witnessed the occurrences at the Rule, after the WAFR group had left the pub, attendees of the Reform event began to use racist language. 

Ibarra recalled approaching the table to engage the group in political discussion — namely, Reform’s policies on inequality and immigration — he recalled that one attendee responded to his point by saying, “A n**** got to make bank.” Having expressed outrage at the use of the slur,  another one of the event’s attendees got involved and told Ibarra he “should go back to where you came from.”

Students for Reform — the UK-wide student Reform Association — released a statement in response to the confrontation with WAFR, reshared by the St Andrews Reform Society account. The statement referred to WAFR’s actions as “harassment and intimidation,” and stressed that “this event clearly highlights the need this country has for Reform on campus."

Suella Braverman, Reform MP and Party spokesperson for Education, Skills, and Equalities, subsequently wrote to University Principal Dame Sally Mapstone to further condemn WAFR’s disruption, referring to the group as “a mob of hard-left activists.” Braverman alleged that members of WAFR spread leaflets labelling Reform as a ‘racist party’ and expressed hope that the values of free speech and enlightenment would be upheld at St Andrews. She urged Mapstone to “investigate the incident and hold those responsible to account.”

Reacting to Braverman’s letter, WAFR’s statement to The Saint wrote, “Like Suella Braverman, Women Against the Far Right believe strongly in the principles of free speech. Unlike Suella Braverman, we do not believe that immigration is an ‘invasion’ or that homelessness is a ‘lifestyle choice.’” 

They were also critical of Braverman for “taking more time to defend Reform Society from criticism than to defend students from hate crimes.”

Other political societies in town have expressed solidarity with WAFR.

St Andrews Labour Society condemned Braverman’s letter in an issued statement on their Instagram story: “Braverman’s letter pressuring the University to allow a far-right party is a desperate product of a desperate figure in British politics who has clung on to extremism for continued relevance.”

In a statement to The Saint, St Andrews Students for Scottish Independence wrote that “whilst all political discourse should remain respectful, we admire the resistance from the St Andrews community and urge the union to introduce stricter affiliation policies, especially considering their subpar reputation when it comes to protection of women and minorities.” 

Students for Scottish Independence also told The Saint that they “will not collaborate with the newly affiliated [Reform] society in any capacity and vehemently reject their politics.”

One of Reform UK’s central goals is reaching “net-zero” migration. The St Andrews Reform President acknowledged that while both Scotland and the wider UK have declining populations, “replacing a native population with people from anywhere else in the world” wouldn’t solve this issue. He expressed a desire to “fix” declining birth rates, saying, “It would not be good to get a lot of people to come here to fix it temporarily.”

The President went on to say that the reason many voters have switched from Conservative to Reform is a lack of action from Conservatives to reduce migration.

He shared that Reform believes in placing less emphasis on civic nationalism and being more “ethnically patriotic,” which he defined as “the opposite of civic nationalism [which is] that if you’re from Scotland, it doesn’t matter your race.”* He clarified that, according to Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage, however, “your ethnicity and your nationality and where you come from is important.”

When asked his response to how immigration poses a threat, when many argue it has historically benefited Britain, the interviewee replied: “Immigrants of the past are not the same as immigrants now.”

He also said that while Irish immigrants were once heavily discriminated against, “now we see them as brothers” because they “speak our language, share our culture,” and have “similar” DNA. 

“The Chinese and the Indians are not [at] the same level as an Irishman. [They do] not [share our] customs [and are] not [of] our culture [...] They’d have a hard time integrating, I guess,” he said. “If 60% of the country became Polish or became Indian or Japanese, it doesn't matter the blood, it would be upsetting for you to be a minority in your own country, which I think is the main reason why people are getting upset and why Reform is leading in the polls.”

When asked to provide details about when the British public had voted against migration, the President referred to the “many manifestos by the Conservative Party”: “It was [a] core issue of Brexit, they wanted no net migration.” The Conservatives have not won a majority share of the vote in Scotland since 1958. Additionally, Scotland voted to Remain in the EU in the Brexit Referendum. 

The Society President cited that the “failure of the establishment” made Reform ideology relevant to people in Scotland, as well as its momentum in England: “People turn to a party that’s new and offers brand new leadership and [...] government.”

On 27 March, Linda Holt, Reform MSP candidate for North East Fife, withdrew from the race following backlash from comments she had made on social media about the former Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf, to whom she referred as an “Islamist moron” and “Hamas PR Act.” 

Additionally, Farage has frequently been accused of racism and antisemitism — even predating his political career during his time at Dulwich College, with a schoolteacher at the time documenting Farage’s bullying behaviour, as was published in many media outlets such as Channel 4 and The Guardian. The President admitted he was unaware of the letter acknowledging the allegations of racism made whilst Farage was at school.

Regarding claims that Reform’s ideology is inherently racist and xenophobic, the President of Reform Society replied that he did not agree, and said that if he felt Reform was “racist” or “full of hate,” he would not be setting the society up. 

A University Spokesperson said: “We have a culture of robust debate at St Andrews, and that is precisely as it should be at an international university with a diverse and politically engaged student population. Freedom of speech does not, however, extend to the right to intimidate others, and there is no place for that type of behaviour here, nor for attempts to stoke culture wars.”

The spokesperson continued: “We have invited the Reform Society to submit a complaint so that these allegations can be properly investigated. We are also investigating a complaint that some people at a recent Reform Society event made racist remarks and publicly mocked a person with a disability. The University has no locus in any decision to allow the Reform Society to affiliate. That is a matter for the independent St Andrews Students’ Association.”

According to St Andrews Reform Society’s Instagram, they are set to become an official St Andrews Society on 15 April.

Image from Reform Society St Andrews

Update: The person interviewed in this article is not the permanent Reform President. They have been temporarily appointed to this role until the first AGM, during which a leader will be officially elected.

*This is the stance of the Restore Party