Cambridge Union president Christopher George: ‘Sometimes it’s important to have people that provoke controversy’

Freedom of speech, and what constitutes it, is a hot topic at present, particularly in the media, online, and on university campuses - Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has even chosen a ‘free speech tsar’ to combat campus ‘cancel culture’. We spoke to Christopher George, Cambridge Union president for the first term of 2023, to get his view.

Christopher is a 23-year-old history undergraduate now in his third year at Wolfson College. Brought up in Twickenham, he was educated at Wellington College in Berkshire and didn’t get into debating until he came up to Cambridge. “I’ve been involved in the Union for a very long time,” he notes, “I joined in my first year and I ran for debates officer and did that in my second.

“I was finishing that position, having had a great time, and decided, ‘Right, I think there’s more I can do here’ so decided to run for the presidency, and luckily I had the support of a lot of people. I didn’t come in with the ambition, I didn’t always want to do this - it wasn’t like a life goal of mine, it progressed naturally, I think.”

On the broad subject of free speech in terms of what goes on at the Union, Christopher says: “Defending free speech within debate I think is obviously a foundation of what we do at the Union.

“I’ve laid out a very clear vision for what I interpret to be a means of exchanging conversations and ideas and bringing the sides together, which allow us to actually have fruitful discussions where people can come away with different opinions, having heard the other side.

“We obviously have a policy of free speech but I think where people have got it wrong is they view free speech as the ‘end game’ when actually we should view free speech as the means to achieve progress, and once we accept that position then we can have more interesting and fruitful discussions.”

Christopher, the first person from Wolfson College to be president of the society, continues: “Free speech for a long time I think has been viewed as quite a right-wing issue and I think that’s wrong. I don’t think free speech is a partisan issue, I don’t think it belongs to the left or the right - I think it is essential for democracy and progress.

“I think the idea that ‘free speech is dead’ is only really coming from this misconception of free speech being a partisan divide or an inside-the-spectrum divide, and I think it comes from a lack of appreciation for it as a tool through which we can have progress, rather than just a means at the end.

“Being able to say what you want doesn’t mean you’re free from consequence as well. I think that people perhaps don’t like hearing their views being challenged, but that’s exactly what we’re here for at the Union, that’s exactly what free speech is about, it’s exactly why a real marketplace of ideas is important to a democracy.”

In a story that made headline news last year, John Cleese pulled out of addressing the Union after art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon was banned from the debating society for doing an impression of Adolf Hitler.

The former member of the Monty Python team and the star of Fawlty Towers wrote on Twitter at the time: “I was looking forward to talking to students at the Cambridge Union this Friday, but I hear that someone there has been blacklisted for doing an impersonation of Hitler. I regret that I did the same on a Monty Python show, so I am blacklisting myself before someone else does.”

Christopher says: “If a speaker decides to cancel themselves, that is them, but we will not do that to them - that is not what we're here for. We are here to hear from them, to learn from them, and to challenge them.”

He says there are those who are unwilling to engage with people they disagree with (though Christopher doesn’t believe that that was why John Cleese pulled out) - “but I think there is a reluctance... perhaps in today’s society we’re lacking some of this willingness to hear someone whom you do disagree with.”

Happily, Christopher notes that one of the things he loves about the Union is that speakers on opposing sides “are in the bar together afterwards having a a drink, and they’re chatting and it’s convivial - there’s appreciation for the other side.”

A number of controversial figures have addressed the Union in the past. Where would Christopher draw the line, if at all? Would he welcome, say, media personality and influencer Andrew Tate into the debating chamber? “Sometimes it’s important to have people that provoke controversy, because actually it gives students a chance to challenge them,” he suggests, “to say: ‘We know you're controversial, this is why, all right, I’m going to ask you this question.

"‘I want to hear it from your lips, why did you do this or why did you say that?’ And actually that is really, really important of what we do. We’re providing this sadly quite rare opportunity to challenge someone with different views.”

[Read more: Cambridge Union releases termcard with John Bercow, Katie Price and Neil Tennant among the speakers, Students at Cambridge Union give vote of confidence to NHS, Ann Widdecombe takes part in Cambridge Union abortion debate]

Established in 1815, the Cambridge Union is the oldest student debating society in the world. Visitors still to come this term include Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Katie Piper, Yanis Varoufakis, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, Katie Price and Sir Bradley Wiggins. For more on the Union, visit cus.org.