By James Simons-
A Eurosceptic Tory MP has been inexplicably knocked for inquiring about university professors who teach Brexit courses.
Chris Heaton-Harris wrote to universities asking for names of Brexit teaching professors and the content of their lectures. The Mp said he believed in an open debate on Brexit, but has been on the receiving end of a trade of criticism.
A lecturers’ union said the letter had the “acrid whiff of McCarthyism” – and Tory peer Lord Patten called it “idiotic and
The government whip tweeted: “To be absolutely clear, I believe in free speech in our universities and in having an open and vigorous debate on Brexit.”
Mr Heaton-Harris is a member of the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Conservative MPs.
Downing Street said Mr Heaton-Harris had written to universities in his capacity as an MP and not as a representative of government.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said Theresa May respected the freedom and independence of universities and the role they play in providing open and stimulating debate. However, Mr.Harris’s request seems harmless without knowing precisely what he intended to use the information for.
Commons leader Andrea Leadsom insisted Mr Heaton-Harris had not sent a “threatening letter” to universities, although she could not say why he had sought the information. Her comment to BBC Radio 4’s The World at One that the negative response from Universities was odd makes alot of sense. “It does seem to me to be a bit odd that universities should react in such a negative way to a fairly courteous request.”
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Sally Hunt, chairwoman of lecturers’ union the University and College Union, said: “Our society will suffer if politicians seek to police what universities can and cannot teach.
“This attempt by Chris Heaton-Harris to compile a hit list of professors has the acrid whiff of McCarthyism about it and (universities minister) Jo Johnson must disown it in the strongest terms.” However, Hunt’s statement has no foundation, nothing in Mr.Harris’s request sought to dicate what Universities can or cannot teach. In fact, the response of Hunt beggars believe, there doesn’t appear to be any logical grounds for her statement.
Professor David Green, vice-chancellor at the University of Worcester, said: “When I read this extraordinary letter on Parliamentary paper from a serving MP, I felt a chill down my spine. Was this the beginnings of a very British McCarthyism?”
He said he feared he would be denounced in Parliament by Mr Heaton-Harris as an “enemy of the people” if he did not supply the list – something he said he had no intention of doing. He added: “I realised that his letter just asking for information appears so innocent but is really so, so dangerous.
“Here is the first step to the thought police, the political censor and Newspeak, naturally justified as ‘the will of the British people'”.
In all honesty, Professor’s Green’s comments sounds like utter rubbish. Unless the letetr said anything more than what we know, there is nothing dangerous about it.
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The outcry against the MP follows a revelation by The Guardian that Mr Heaton-Harris wrote to university vice-chancellors at the start of this month asking for the names of professors “involved in the teaching of European affairs, with particular reference to Brexit”.
The MP’s letter also asks for a “copy of the syllabus” and online links to lectures on Brexit. It sounds to me that the MP just wanted to learn a bit more about Brexit.
Lord Patten, the chancellor of Oxford University, and former chairman of the BBC Trust, described Mr Heaton-Harris’s letter as an “extraordinary example of outrageous and foolish behaviour – offensive and idiotic Leninism”.
The peer, a longstanding supporter of Britain’s membership of the EU, told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One: “I couldn’t believe that it had come from a Conservative MP.
“I think he must be an agent of Mr Corbyn intent on further increasing the number of young people who want to vote Labour.”
He said he was sure most university vice-chancellors would drop the letter “in the waste-paper basket” and he accused Mr Heaton-Harris of an affront to free speech and of treating UK universities like “Chinese re-education camps”.
It alol sounds like a load of nonesense. There has been nothing to explain what was so idiotic or foolish about his request, let alone offensive.
McCarthyism refers to US Senator Joseph McCarthy who led attempts to purge alleged Communists in public life the 1950s.
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