Queen Mary University boss tells pro-Gaza mob to tear down camp
A university boss has been praised after telling a pro-Gaza student mob he will not meet them until they tear down their makeshift camp as US-style campus protests continue to be staged across Britain.
Colin Bailey, president and principal of Queen Mary University of London, was confronted by students from QMUL Students for Palestine who have pitched tents at the institution in east London.
They angrily demanded a meeting with him – only for him to face them down and insist he would not talk any further until their public protest ended, while also asking them to remove their face masks.
Footage filmed by the group and shared online includes a female student telling Mr Bailey: ‘We don’t feel safe on campus without our masks on.’
He is heard replying: ‘You don’t feel safe on campus? Really?’
Colin Bailey, president and principal of Queen Mary University of London , was confronted by students from QMUL Students for Palestine at the campus in east London
Footage shared online showed him telling students there would be no further talks until they removed their pro-Gaza makeshift camp which has been set up on university grounds
After telling her there would be no further talks ‘until the camp comes down’, the student responds: ‘We are not going to take the camp down until you meet with us.’
Protesters accused him of laughing at their activism, with a voice heard saying through a loudspeaker: ‘Colin Bailey, are you laughing that we are standing against the university’s complicity in this genocide?
‘Why are you laughing at our demands?”
After saying to the students, ‘I can hear you’, he was told: ‘You can hear us but can you listen to us, please?’
Mr Bailey, who took up his post at the university in 2017, answered: ‘I said I will not talk to you with all your masks on and I won’t talk to you until the camp comes down.’
Reform UK party leader Ben Habib, a former Brexit Party MEP, was among those acclaiming Mr Bailey for his stance.
Mr Habib said in response to the footage: ‘At last some common sense.
‘These student protests across the US and now the UK are nothing more than idiotic. They know close to little about the subjects about which they are protesting.
‘The only positive thing one can say about them is, at their age it is forgivable to be all heart and no brain. With any luck as they mature, so will their views.’
Among the demonstrations which have been established at universities across the UK in recent weeks, pro-Palestine students armed with tents and sleeping bags last week stormed a London School of Economics campus.
The face mask-wearing mob waved Palestinian flags as they poured into the LSE’s Marshall Building.
The protest came after a report compiled by ‘concerned staff and students’ was published which claimed the university had invested more than £48million in 53 companies ‘that are involved in crimes against the Palestinian people’.
A spokesperson for LSE said in response: ‘We will carefully consider the report submitted by the protest group and respond in due course. We will also continue to engage in a peaceful dialogue.
‘Our priority continues to be the wellbeing of the LSE community. Exams, which take place in other areas of campus, will not be affected by the protest.’
Demonstrators have been pitching tents and hoisting pro-Palestine flags on campuses across the country, calling for an end to the war between Israel and Hamas and demanding universities disclose and end investments in the arms trade.
Mail Online revealed earlier this month how students taking part were enjoying DJ sets, free drink tokens and regular trips home for showers.
Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt has warned that protesters should be met with ‘an extremely strict response’ if they tried to replicate what she called ‘disgusting’ scenes happening in the US, where 1,000 students have been arrested.
Organisers here have insisted the protests will remain peaceful as they spread to even more universities over the coming days and weeks.
Among the other universities where the so-called ‘solidarity encampments’ have emerged are Oxford, Cambridge, Newcastle, Bristol and Manchester.
The University of Birmingham become the first British university to threaten students with legal action if they do not shut down their encampment.
The university’s director of legal services accused those taking part in the protests of trespass and demanded they leave immediately.
