By Ben Kerrigan-
Nigel Farage’s Brexit party has helped a disillusioned Newcastle University student set up a student society promoting the party’s course. Josh Samuels(pictured) launched the society on the same day the party officially went live but has been on the receiving end of ridicule and criticism from social media groups in the university.
The party which did well won the recent MEP elections in May 2019, barely six weeks after launching, we won the European elections with more votes than the Tory and Labour Parties combined in its first six weeks of formation with 29 MEPs make us the joint-biggest party in the European Parliament. The controversial party proposes to challenge the two party system with the objective of ”making the people sovereign” now has two student representatives planning to spread the party’s vision at Newcastle University by setting up a student’s political society in its campus.
The Brexit party has gone out of their way to support the avid supporting student whose passion for the party has not been shared by others at the Uni. Nigel Farage is popular in many circles, but also considered a far right racist by many others including mainstream political parties who want no part of him or his political aspirations. The wide division in both the Tory and Labour party has given rise to increased support to Farage’s party, something that spells danger for those who consider his politics a danger to British society.
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Young Josh has not received the greatest of responses and recently wrote a letter to the Principal of St Andrews complaining about the number of laugh and sad reacts a post about the society in a St Andrews Facebook group got. “One has to ask oneself why there is an anger and sadness towards a group of people who wish to support the will of the majority of the United Kingdom,” he wrote. He has accused an anonymous post on social media of “inciting members of the St Andrews community to commit an act of terrorism” when a suggestion for milkshake to be thrown on the society came to his attention
Josh and his pal , Computer Science student, Max Hibab want to get a few speakers up to Newcastle and says his dream speaker, highlighting Labour Mp Kate Hoey, whom he admires as a “superb orator.”
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Max says he was granted permission from Richard Tice, the party’s chairman, to use their logo, but the party says this does not mean they are affiliated with the party. The pair, who attended the Brexit party in May, are awaiting party-branded banners and leaflets from a Scotland based co-ordinator. The young students are planning on getting speakers up and having “cross-party debates”,and are also trying to organise a safer “Drinks and Debate” label. Both students say they have encountered challenges being right-wing at uni. “One thing that I am keen to stamp out is the university-wide intolerance for right-wing and pro-Brexit ideas and beliefs,” says Josh.
Josh was subjected to unflattering criticism when he posted his vision to support the Brexit party St Andrews Facebook group wouldn’t have been accepted if he was posting about an LGBT or Muslim society. However, an LGBT or Muslim society is quite different from the promotion of a political party as far as criticism is concerned.
“Telling somebody at university that you’re right-wing, or that you support Brexit, is like you are confessing to something. In very much the same way that it is right that people are free to be homosexual or Muslim or whatever they may be, right-wing people must not be stigmatised or marginalised because they happen to think in a certain way which differs from the majority of others in a particular environment,”
A spokesperson from the Brexit Party told The Eye Of Media.Com:
“We are thrilled by the enthusiastic support we have received from so many young Brexiteers, including those in our universities.
“One in four British graduates and two-fifths of Brits aged between eighteen and thirty-four endorsed Brexit. They came from all walks of life and political backgrounds and many of them now back the Brexit Party, which is just a few months old.
“Currently, we do not have plans for a formal youth wing and instead encourage young people to sign up as registered supporters like everyone else.
“At this time, university groups using our logo and name do not have official links with the Brexit Party and statements made by their members may not reflect the views of this organisation.”
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