When fighting the flame feeds it: Speaker protests at Warwick University
Charlie Rose • UK • 4 minute read
Image: Damien Walmsley / Flickr
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Upon reflection on my experiences of the events I will discuss, I must ironically give credit to the administrative error that prevented me from attending Warwick PPE Society’s George Finch event. This denial at the Gibbet Hill Campus door forced me into a far more worthwhile political engagement, acknowledging and challenging the arguments of the protestors outside.
You didn’t have to be very politically engaged to know who Finch was after the Warwick PPE Society announced that he would be speaking with students at one of their campus events. The topic dominated discussion on forums such as the now sadly deceased Warwick Tea; it seemed like every student had something to say. Through the storm of debate in-person and online, two competing perspectives emerged. Some argued it was important that Finch should be allowed to exercise his ‘freedom of speech’, arguing that it would be overly authoritarian to prevent him from expressing his views to students. The opposing view is (rather conveniently for me) summarised perfectly by the Warwick Against Hate Instagram page, acting as a collective voice that argued Finch’s viewpoint crossed into the territory of hate speech, citing his vocal opposition to transgenderism as a legitimate identity, and, more broadly, Finch’s party, Reform UK, and its anti-immigration rhetoric. They argue that this perpetuates and legitimises hatred towards ethnic and religious minorities.
It is this sentiment that Finch and Reform UK’s viewpoints perpetuate hatred that I find myself aligning with; the seemingly endless list of scandals related to Reform UK local election candidates in the recent 2026 elections is an alarming reminder of the calibre of racist politics that exists within the party’s circles. It is hard to stomach the presence of Finch on campus due to his aligning with and championing of the same political movement that has fought a campaign of divide-and-conquer politics since the days of Brexit. It is through this lens that I can sympathise and acknowledge the intentions of those who chose to protest Finch’s presence on campus. To them, it wasn’t a juvenile ideological spat that sought to suppress free and open debate on campus. Rather, it was a display of solidarity with the marginalised communities targeted by Reform’s rhetoric.
Why would Finch want to ragebait/antagonise university students?
Whilst so far this article has read like a staunch endorsement of the protests, in reality my support of their actions extends only to the principles that mobilised them, and not necessarily the methods through which they were expressed. It is imperative within political analysis not to isolate the basic morality of political actions from the context in which they were realised, as in some cases, I believe these actions to have far more harmful consequences than benefits. Unfortunately, this example is one of those instances.
I think it is naive to think that Finch came to Warwick with the intention of trying to mobilise students in support of this cause. Polling by YouGov in 2025 found that Reform support among students sits only at 7%, with far more students supporting left-leaning parties such as Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens. In this context, I think it’s safe to assume that Finch came to Warwick knowing that most people would be in opposition to his politics and would not be convinced by what he had to say. The council leader also most likely knew there would be strong animosity toward his presence on campus. So why did Finch even bother attending in the first place?
If, like me, you are chronically online, you may be familiar with the term ‘ragebaiting’ (the Gen Z term for winding someone up, essentially). I believe this phrase perfectly encapsulates what Finch and Reform intended to do with this event. So let’s ask ourselves, why would Finch want to ragebait/antagonise university students? The answer is quite simple: to feed into his anti-establishment rhetoric.
Image: Rwendland / Wikimedia Commons
Reform, like any populist party. utilise rhetoric to construct clear social and political divisions and, in their case, two cleavages are key. The first is nationalistic. By constructing an idea of ‘authentic Britishness’, they can appeal to people by arguing that Britain is under threat of cultural takeover; they often frame this as the fault of increased migration. The second and more relevant cleavage to this argument is the divide between the so-called ‘woke’ establishment and ‘normal people’, whose views are portrayed as being ignored and suppressed. Through this, Reform UK can effectively frame any accusations of ‘far right’ or ‘racist’ rhetoric as an establishment ploy to suppress their freedom of speech. Using this, they can mobilise anyone who aligns with them, under the guise that their views are being attacked, effectively installing a victim mentality within their own supporters.
This is where I derive my opposition to the speaker protests. Whilst I have previously stated I have so much respect for the principles that drove those students to organise and mobilise, in hindsight I think the aftermath of the event proved my thesis correct. Just days after Finch’s appearance on campus, he appeared on the notorious right-wing news channel GB News, spouting the exact same rhetoric just theorised. He lamented his view that universities are a melting pot for radical leftist politics that seek to suppress ‘common sense politics’ that most normal people believe. This is critical when considering the credibility GB News has with Reform voters. Polling found in 2024 that the majority of Reform UK voters trust the news platform more than any other modern media source, academics, and even schoolteachers/judges. Whilst not directly relevant to my argument, it goes to show the level of influence the channel has on those sympathetic to Reform UK’s rhetoric. Taking this into consideration, Finch using the protests as proof of Reform’s rhetoric on left-wing culture can have a strong impact on its voters, giving him political ammunition to reinforce and potentially entrench existing perceptions of the wider left as seeking to restrict the majority ‘common sense’ viewpoint that they conceptualise.
It is our duty as progressives to do everything we can to prohibit this 'new right wave' from injecting their poison into real policy
It would be unfair and frankly hypocritical of me to end this article by simply critiquing these protesters without offering a constructive alternative. The problem with these protests is that they give reform exactly what they want: attention. Reform and many other right-wing figures thrive off of the rage directed at them, which they can use to fuel a sense of political victimhood. Thus, in the specific context of universities, I think the best course of action should be to silently boycott rather than directly protest. In this way, we deny them the spectacle they came for, leaving them with far less material to weaponise against the very people opposing them, which, in the broader fight against this type of politics, will be far more beneficial.
Before I conclude, I find it necessary to clarify that I do not extend this perspective I have shared to any other form of protest against the far right. I encourage everyone to knock on doors, attend solidarity marches, and educate those around them about the truth of Reform’s rhetoric and why they seek to divide us. Unfortunately, the reality is that universities are a prime target for the party’s ragebaiting strategy to bolster their rhetoric and galvanise support from disenfranchised voters we as the broader left need to win back.
It is our duty as progressives to do everything we can to prohibit this ‘new right wave’ from injecting their poison into real policy. Whilst I can understand the instinctual reaction to stop at nothing to prevent Reform from spreading their ideas on campus, ultimately it clashes with the larger and frankly more vital role of stopping the advance of this type of rhetoric within the media and public opinion.
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•Published: 24/10/26
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