All in Opinion
Both BL and QM Debating Society held a historic debate earlier this term. Our esteemed president and vice-president, Rob Tucker and Numa Ali, represented BL with 2 others in a 4-man team with the QM team having 4 formidable debaters in their ranks.
It’s been more than a month since the Minister of State for Universities, Michelle Donelan, announced the devastating news that “EU, other EEA and Swiss nationals will no longer be eligible for home fee status, undergraduate, postgraduate and advanced learner financial support from Student Finance England for courses starting in academic year 2021/22.”
“Hath not a Jew eyes?” asks Shylock in his monologue to Salarino and Salanio in Act 3 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s classic: The Merchant of Venice. “Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
The irony in the government’s rhetoric is glaring; today’s “heroes” were yesterday’s villains as the “battle against the junior doctors”, which former health secretary Jeremy Hunt frequently boasted about in the 2019 Tory leadership hustings, becomes the “battle against the invisible enemy”. The army which Mr. Hunt proudly defeated now fights on the government’s behalf.
If you’ve ever been a part of BLSA Help Squad, the group that helps the fresh-faced students move into their new student accommodation, chances are that you will have been asked at some point whether “it’s safe around here?”
Democracy is merely an ideal - an abstraction that the preferences of citizens should be translated into representative institutions. Electoral systems are designed to most accurately align with the ideals of democracy and dependent on the public perception that these systems are fair and fulfill expectations.
As the clocks struck 10:00 on the 12th December, student union bars across the country fell silent. The shouts of “ooohh Jeremy Corbyn!” dissipated as the exit poll was released and Huw Edwards uttered those three dreaded words: Conservative majority likely.
And so it is done! The British exit from the European Union. It’s only been half a decade and yet it seems that this debate, if it could even be reasonably called that with the insidious interests playing their petty plots of debaucherous deceit and deception, is finally over. We’ve left after all. There’s nothing more to it.
