Banning Cameron: the pointlessness of campus censorship

First they banned Julie Bindel, then Milo Yiannopoulos; now the Manchester Students’ Union is considering banning the prime minister. A student, Ed Bird, recently submitted a joke motion calling for David Cameron to be banned from the SU building. It was intended as a send-up of the censorious nature of the SU. But, incredibly, it has been accepted as worthy of being debated at this week’s student-senate meeting.

I know that many students disagree with Cameron’s political views. He’s too left-wing for my liking. But unlike SU politicos I don’t consider differences of opinion as a justification for censorship. Many of my fellow students today seem to lack the capacity to engage with ideas contrary to their own, to the extent that dissenting views make them feel ‘unsafe’ or ‘threatened’. These people need to get a grip on reality and realise that the world will not bow down to their fragile egos.

I can’t work out what is more idiotic – that some SU politicos actually took this clearly fake motion seriously, or that they think that banning Cameron would do anything other than embarrass the SU. I hate to break it to them, but banning Cameron is not going to make the government blink. The campus censors need to realise that if they disagree with someone they should criticise their ideas, rather than restrict their right to enter the beloved Safe Space. I only hope these people won’t be running the country one day.

Elrica Degirmen is a student at the University of Manchester.