On Wednesday, the 17th of June, Tommy Robinson made his much awaited appearance to the Oxford Union for the debate on ‘This House Believes the West is Right to be Suspicious of Islam’.
This appearance stirred, however, the spirits in the city centre of Oxford.
On the evening of Wednesday – 17th of June – some of Oxford’s beloved local spots (like the White Rabbit) closed early, windows were boarded up and police were blocking off entire streets.
The headline speakers of the debate, for this intriguing occasion, happened to be: far right figure Tommy Robinson with Laurence Fox – arguing for the proposition – while on the opposition, figures like former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg and debater Abdullah al Andalusi.
Outside the walls of the Oxford Union (and the debate that was unravelling there) … the atmosphere around was rather tense. Hundreds of demonstrators and residents (most of whom were ‘anti-fascist’, but also a small group of Robinson supporters) filled Cornmarket and New Inn Hall Street, forming essentially what could only be described as a human blockade around the gates. The outside crowd was so loud that it could be heard from inside the chamber within which the debate unfolded.
This event appeared to many of the crowd as an inappropriate invitation as it happened right after quite a lot of far-right unrest and racial violence (i.e. Southampton and Belfast) over the last couple of weeks.
Because of the severely crowded, blocked streets, the debate was met with an inevitable delay, while the chamber remained mostly empty due to students not managing to pass the crowd to attend the event.
The debate managed to wrap up at around 1 A.M. when the students that managed to attend delivered the verdict on who managed to win…
The opposition won by defeating the motion by both standard chamber votes (57 to 41) and by official membership cards (33 to 30).
