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At the University of Sussex, Brighton & Hove Young Greens, a youth faction of the Green Party
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are campaigning to ban the newly recognised Reform UK Society, claiming the party is fascist
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and jeopardises the safety and wellbeing of students. The Reform Society has received
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violent threats online and a group who call themselves the Anti-Fascist Students Sussex
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stage a protest called Kick Reform Off Campus on the day of the freshers' fair that the Reform
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Society had a stall. Some individuals tried to stop GB News from filming by blocking our camera
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and no one was willing to speak to the channel having been instructed by the organisers to
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refuse to speak to any journalist. Also nearly all of them were masked up. I have to say it was all
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quite amusing. I spoke to Dylan Caddick, the Reform UK Society president, about his reaction to these
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protests. So first of all Dylan could you tell us what it's been like on the ground at university
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whilst all of this mayhem has taken place? Yeah, so we set the society up and since yesterday
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when the refreshers fair went on and since other interviews, my face has really got out there now
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And so we've had people taking pictures of us sort of coming up to us now
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These people aren't very friendly either. We've just gone to the bar and people are sort of following us around
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and still recording us and you don't feel safe at university. A lot of my committee, a lot of my members are all concerned for our safety
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And so it's really worrying going ahead. How are you able to set up the society with a group of people in the first place
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Because considering the reaction to the society, and I have to say, unfortunately, I'm not really surprised
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especially at a university like Sussex, it has form for students reacting in this way to people that they disagree with
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How are you able to find people to set the society up with? because I can imagine, especially in my experience at university
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you have to be quite, you have to suss people out to find out, you know, if there was anyone else who had this opinion
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How were you able to find these people? So originally, I didn't even speak up myself
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because I had so many concerns about what would happen if I did. But then finally, I went to the debate society
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and it took about two years for me to actually meet people with similar opinions
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And it wasn't many, but I've slowly reached out. and as you find more people, they sort of know people who are all secret about it
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And we eventually coordinated, and we spent a few months sort of meeting up
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having these sort of secret meetups, and then we decided, okay, let's go for it
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We have enough people. Let's do a society. And I was expecting, of course, a negative reaction from the area
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but I didn't expect it to be this bad. I woke up one morning had hundreds of hate comments It now over a thousand and so many of these were death threats and just threats of violence and could never have expected it to be this bad
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And you've reported some of those comments to the university, haven't you? What have they done
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about it, if anything? Yeah, so they followed us up on it and they have condemned the violence and
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they've basically said we are allowed to be here because a lot of these students are wanting us
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banned and all these sorts of things. We've also gone to the police as well. Over 30 people have
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been reported to the police for these violent comments because all it takes is one person to
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really carry out these so with these concerns for our safety we have to just make sure everyone is
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looked after well of course and we saw that um incident at the university of warwick only a
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couple of weeks ago when someone did try to attack george finch who's the leader of warwickshire
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council um what did you make of the protests yesterday that our viewers have just seen some
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clips of yeah um not surprising sadly they set up various groups and secret chats to sort of plot
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against us many people were saying throw eggs throw tomatoes at us so we sort of had to stay
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behind the scenes a bit because just for our own safety to make sure things were okay because i have
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to put me my committee and our members first to make sure everyone is safe because there's so many
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people out there who are after us and so yeah um how many people if you don't mind me asking are in
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the society yeah um we have just over 20 people in the society but so many people most of them are
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just too anxious to actually show their face at these events and do you think that eventually they
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will become braver do you think that the university will you know the more events that you have do you
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think that you'll be able to find more you know because you said when you gave an interview live
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to GB News at the protest um that one of the reasons why you set this group up is because you
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wanted to give a space to students who didn't like the status quo at university and wanted a space to
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be able to share the fact that they may have uh conservative views or that they do support reform
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UK um you hope for that it will attract more people eventually when all of this dies down
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So yeah, what we're going to do from now on, we're going to do all sorts of events. Even in the
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refreshes fair, we weren't sure whether we were going to do it. I wanted to do it, but a lot of
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our members and committee didn't want to. But we went in, showed our face, put a flag down
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took a picture, show that we are there, we have this presence and we're not afraid of them
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And going forward, we are going to have events. We're going to invite all sorts of people to come
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down and speak at the university because we have to break this bubble. University needs to be a
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place of multiple ideas to encourage young people to really think and it can only be done if there multiple sides if we can actually criticise each other constructively and create a better place for
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everyone. What is your response to students who say that Reform UK or your society is fascist
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Because that is the accusation that they love to throw that word around. What do you think about
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those accusations? I mean, it's completely false. It's quite crazy to see because these sorts of
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people, they don't even understand who we are as people. If you actually meet us, go to our events
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you'll see everyone's from a wide range of backgrounds, all sorts of people and all sorts
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of supporters. And as well, the sort of actions these people have taken, they're taking fascist
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actions against us. They're wanting violent censorship of us. They want to scare us off campus
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All these sort of tendencies they've used are basically mirroring fascist tendencies
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and we support the university's values we do not want to cause any issues we do not want to scare
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these students but it's these tactics they've been using against us which are completely opposed to
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freedom of speech and i saw your post uh yesterday when you said that you went to the uh refreshers
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fair and you took the photo and you posted saying that we were there and then all of the comments
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on that post say things like oh yeah you only walked in to take a photo and what would you say
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back to those students because to me i wonder what they want you to do because obviously they've made
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their students have made threats against you they've tried to intimidate you and now they're
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mocking you for showing your face yeah i think it's better than not going at all we're showing
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that we are here we went in there within seconds we're just surrounded by people harassing us
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asking us all sorts of things and when there's only a few of us and this is a affair of hundreds
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to people and there are over a thousand comments against us. Of course, we've got a lot of concerns
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It was hard enough to get my people to go in there as well to follow me in and join me in this
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And I can completely understand their concerns as well. So just by showing our face, I hope it can
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build towards this normalization of our presence. And as I say, we'll have future events. We'll be
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happy to show our face in the future. But I think the Students' Union made it especially difficult
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because originally we had two ticket options, students and the public. And the Students' Union changed the rules so that we weren't allowed to have assistance
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We weren't allowed to have support for our safety. So without this, we had all these concerns that we couldn't fulfil
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So we just had to do something smaller. And if you don't mind me asking again, what has been the personal impact on you throughout this ordeal
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because there are very few students who are willing to speak up in this way And having been through something similar myself when I was at university I know that it does take an emotional toll
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Are you in your final year at university? Yeah, luckily I only have a few months left
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Otherwise it could be really bad if it was a few more years. But there's a lot of concerns, obviously, with my members
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and these other people that support us because some of them have three years left at university
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and they don't want to be looking over their shoulder the whole time as if they can get hit or attacked or anything
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And I think it's a lot of concerns there. And my family, my friends, they've all said to me
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why are you doing this? They support me, but they can see the risk
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They can see these comments that people are putting and how dangerous it could be
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But I think it's about the principle. We can't let these people get away with these actions and we have to actually make a stand
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And finally, Dylan, would you campaign to ban, for example the Green Party or any other political society on campus and and if not which I imagine
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is your answer yeah no of course not why do you think these students are so determined or prefer
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would prefer to ban the reform society rather than have a debate with you yeah I mean it's shocking
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to see for instance the Green Party Society have called for us to be banned they oppose our
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recognition by the university. Luckily, the free speech laws have allowed us to exist. Otherwise
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I'm sure the university wouldn't have allowed us either, because at the university, they've been
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fined last year over half a million pounds for violating free speech. And I think that's why
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our presence is most important. But I think I wouldn't want these people banned. I stand for
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free speech. Our whole party stands for free speech. And we want to ensure that people can
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actually speak up, whether they're on the left or the right. I've got no problem with that. But I
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just want to be treated with the mutual respect that I'm trying to give them. Dylan, thank you
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very much for speaking to us at GB News. Thank you very much. In response to this uproar, the Chancellor
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of the University of Sussex has said this, freedom of speech is one of the university's foundational
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commitments. We also have legal and regulatory obligations to uphold freedom of speech and
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academic freedom. Those who support and advocate for reform or any other UK political party are
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entitled to do so. Sussex is a place of discussion, debate and disagreement and as such it is
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unsurprising that this has led to robust debate within our community. That is as it should be
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We are committed to ensuring that diversity in all its forms including diversity of thought and
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belief can flourish in our community and we will always respect the right of our members of our
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community to engage in lawful debate and disagreement. I'm Connie Shaw, this is GB News
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