When Boris Johnson talks about ‘watermelon smiles’, or calls PoC “piccaninnies”, is it a slip of the tongue? An honest mistake? Unfortunate language by a man with benevolent intentions? Or are these comments dripping with prejudice, scarcely disguised under a thin veneer of political critique?

The answer seems clear, but you wouldn’t know it from the way the NUS’ defenders have been talking about Malia Bouattia’s now infamous comments. Her words were deprived of context, we are told, and that she has been an anti-racist campaigner all her life. What was Boris’ response? “The Tory Mayoral candidate insisted he “loathed and despised” racism and his words, written more than five years ago, had been taken out of context.”

No-one openly admits to their racism, especially not those in positions of power. To do so would be political suicide. Prejudice comes complete with facades and distortions, but occasionally the mask slips, and dark and disturbing views see the light of day. The argument that Malia’s comments were “taken out of context” is as credible as Boris’ comparable defence. Watch the video where she talks about a “Zionist-led media.” She spoke about generic “Zionist and neo-con lobbies” controlling the government Prevent agenda. If you want context, here’s context: the age old anti-semitic tropes of Jewish power and media control, scarcely veiled by the use of the term ‘Zionist’.

“Two Jews, three opinions” is a running joke in our community. Jews hardly ever agree on anything. And yet, here there is a startling unanimity. 57 Jewish Society Presidents from around the country, over 85 per cent of Oxford Jewish Society, every Oxford JSoc President and Vice President of the past two years, the Union of Jewish Students, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Chief Rabbi, and vast swathes of the Jewish community are all unequivocal in their opposition to NUS anti-semitism, including the remarks of Malia Bouattia.

Although some on the Yes to NUS campaign have already told us what they think of Jewish concerns. According to this piece, Jewish students’ concerns about Malia’s comments are in fact the product of Islamophobia. It’s a charge that originated with Bouattia herself, who responded to Jewish student concerns by claiming that this constituted “an attack on [her] faith”.

Islamophobia is vile and it is seen in the implicit claims that Malia is an ISIS sympathiser. This accusation here, however, is nothing more than a silencing mechanism against Jewish students, allowing Malia’s defenders to avoid the fact that she has been condemned by virtually every section of the Jewish community. We know anti-Jewish prejudice when we see it and hear it, and to claim that our fight against anti-semitism is disingenuous, or a cynical outing of anti-Muslim hatred is an unacceptable insult towards the UK Jewish community. It is repugnant that Yes campaigners are willing to defend their cause by setting ethnic minorities against each other.

This whole episode is part of a growing disease at the heart of the student movement. It is not just the anti-semitism itself, but the response to it. It’s the denial, the attempt to explain anti-semitism away, the talking over Jewish students, the idea that Jewish societies are somehow unrepresentative, the accusation of fabrication, the idea that we’re all just making it up as one giant Zionist conspiracy committed to defending Israeli crimes, and the lack of any sort of apology for any distress caused.

Consider the fact that this is now a real calculation for many Jewish students: Do I want a university experience free of anti-semitism, or do I want to be involved in student politics? For as long as the NUS apologists and Malia’s defenders run free, this is the choice we now face.

Ultimately, the only valid argument regarding NUS affiliation and anti-semitism is a pragmatic one. How do we tackle the problem? Should we stay in and fight the good fight for reform, or disaffiliate and leave, making a principled stand against anti-semitism as we do so?

There’s a reason Jewish students don’t buy promises of reform. We’ve been told change is coming for years and we’re still waiting. “Last week I resigned from my position as a National Executive Committee member, because of a continued apathy within the National Union of Students to Jewish student suffering.” This is Luciana Berger, and it’s from 2005. An anti-semitic sickness has infected the NUS for over a decade. And nothing has changed.

There are other reasons to be sceptical. Take, for example, the selective misrepresentation of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), which fully supports Oxford Jewish Society’s position on disaffiliation. We’ve been told that Malia ‘listened’ to Jewish students by organising a meeting with UJS. The Yes campaign chooses to omit, however, the outcome of that meeting, where nothing was resolved. As the UJS campaigns director wrote, “I did not accept the invitation so that Malia could use it in the Guardian to attempt to improve her public image… Malia needs to go further to redress the concerns that were put to her… Many Jewish students will feel that they are unable to engage with an NUS under her leadership.”

But I think the biggest reason Jewish students have no faith in reform comes from the Yes campaign itself. It comes from the whitewashing of Maila’s comments, the smearing of the Jewish community as Islamophobic for having the audacity to speak out, and the co-opting of the fight against anti-semitism against the views of the overwhelming majority of Oxford’s Jewish Society. How can the Yes to NUS campaigners claim that they will fight anti-semitism in one breath, whilst simultaneously arguing Malia was innocently misunderstood in the next? Yes To NUS are selling Jewish students hopes and dreams that will soon turn to nightmares. Reform is an empty promise, and Jewish students are sick and tired of being duped.

So let’s cut through the distractions, the smoke and mirrors, and see the issue for what it is. This is an NUS President who has made anti-semitic comments, and who was subsequently elected regardless; this is an organisation where arguing against Holocaust commemoration is cause for widespread applause; this is an organisation with a long history of anti-semitism that expects Jewish students to buy empty promises of reform; and an organisation whose defenders in Oxford seek to defend the indefensible and ignore the overwhelming majority of the Jewish student voice.

Enough is enough. If you want to hear a message from Oxford’s Jewish students, let it be this one. Get out of the NUS. Get out now. Only disaffiliation can provide a big enough shock to the system to purge our student movement of this vile prejudice.

When the veteran Conservative MP and former minister, Peter Lilley, matriculated, it was possible to apply to both Oxford and Cambridge. Lilley, though he received an off er at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, chose the rather grander site of Clare College, Cambridge. Though it wasn’t a decision taken on grounds of grandeur or prestige, but rather a simple one based on course, Lilley’s adolescent choice might seem to put him on the opposite side of an ancient divide. After all, in the English Civil War the Tabs’ furious parliamentarianism was only met by the equal support offered to Charles I by Oxford, his wartime capital. Today, however, the two universities appear almost united on the issue that threatens to provoke a civil war in the Conservatives Party: the European Union.

A poll conducted by Cherwell in Hilary showed almost four-fifths of Oxford students support the Remain side in the in-out referendum to be held on June 23rd, whilst the Cambridge University Student Union (CUSU) recently passed a motion in support of the Remain campaign. It might seem, therefore, rather puzzling that prominent Eurosceptics like Lilley continue to visit and talk to this minority of undergraduate Brexiteers.

“I just have to put the arguments forward by speaking at universities. When I spoke at Hertfordshire, they took a poll beforehand that was 75 per cent in favour of remain, and by the end it was 55 per cent in favour of Leave. We can put the arguments forward and then we’ll have no problem. We need to get through the filter of the BBC and the institutions themselves, like universities. Universities feel they have a vested interested in staying in because of the money they get from the European Commission, but that all comes from British taxpayers. We’d be able to cut out the middle man.”

Lilley continued by noting that the central conceit of the Remain campaign, that a vote to leave would be a vote for instability and a vote for Britain to leap into an uncertain future, has come under ferocious attack from the Brexiteers in recent weeks. Roaming fees in particular, which the European Commission will abolish in 2017, have been attacked not in terms of the direct effect, but on the distributional consequences.

“We have to talk about how it’s being financed. I was at the European Parliament when roaming fees came up, and some of the MEPs pointed out that reducing roaming fees means cutting costs for people who travel a lot at the expense of constituents who never leave their council estates. Their tariffs would be higher than they would otherwise be; bully for those who travel a lot, but the money isn’t coming out of the air.”

As much as it is possible to read the sincerity in Lilley’s voice, it does seem a rather strange tune to be played by a Tory MP. Distributional concerns have always been the preserve of Labour and Liberal Democrat members; Lilley’s former boss, Lady Thatcher, once complained in the Commons about her perception of Liberal policies as “preferring the poor were poorer, provided the rich were less rich.” The cynical view would be of an ideologue, prepared to back any and all policies and schemes provided the ultimate ends of Brexit were achieved. This line of attack has been equally ruthlessly exploited by the Remain campaign, particularly by juxtaposing NHS-based arguments for Leave with the desire for NHS privatisation expressed by Arron Banks, leader of the Leave the EU group.

That said, Lilley has no problem working with people expressing ‘barmy’ views; even the appearance of George Galloway at the Grassroots Out launch was not shocking. “The campaign to keep the Union together had Farage and Galloway on their side, and Better Together still won the vote. There are just as many extreme groups, like communists and socialists in favour of Remain. I don’t think you should judge a campaign by smearing its reputation.”

No doubt, however, there are some important conceptual problems with a British exit from the European Union. Though the threat of imminent Scottish independence has receded somewhat with the failure of the Scottish Nationalists to win a second majority in the Scottish Parliament, there are still fears that an English vote to leave accompanied by a Scottish vote to remain would lead to a second independence referendum and, ultimately, Scottish independence. Less publicised, but considered more pressing amongst other EU heads of state, is the threat that Brexit would pose to the Northern Irish peace process. Lilley, however, insisted that the idea that Scotland would leave the British union just to be part of a notably more porous European union is somewhat suspect.

“As a person of Scottish ancestry, it would really upset me emotionally. I don’t believe Scotland will leave, because it’s inconceivable to me, if we leave, that there would be more Scots who would take the real leap in the dark of separating from the UK, having the euro and accepting Schengen and re-erecting Hadrian’s Wall, having no oil money just to re-join the European Union. I don’t believe it will happen.”

Ultimately, as Lilley was aware, many dice have already been cast, in that the ‘firm Remain’ and ‘firm Leave’ vote is already certain; the challenge now for both campaigns is to speak to floating voters. Grand schemes of European integration, and indeed grandiose dreams of British parliamentary sovereignty and an alternative Commonwealth union, will not persuade them in this referendum campaign; perhaps the calm rationale of those like Peter Lilley will.

I’ve been at Pusey House for almost three years now. It’s coming to the end of my third academic year. But I was also in Oxford for a period of time before that, and I was chaplain at Lincoln College for a period. Then I was away for a period in between those two times, when I had a parish in Canada.

I was drawn here by what I knew about the way Oxford colleges functioned and the idea of being a part of an intimate community of students and scholars working together, and drawn by the possibility of being a chaplain in that environment.

When I first moved to Oxford to become chaplain at Lincoln College I expected more hostility. Not in general, but I assumed that some students would find the fact you had a chaplain a very weird and strange thing. I know some people do find it a weird and strange thing, yet some of those very students talked to me about how important they thought it was. I remember one student telling me that the chaplain represented the soul of the college. So although I think that for some it would represent a kind of anachronism I think that the presence of ministry in the colleges has been viewed as an attention to wholeness and personal development, and a care for those things.

My favourite aspect of working here is the combination of a life of prayer and worship, alongside serious academic pursuit, in the context of a community. So it’s three elements: the worship, the life of the mind, the community. Those things classically go together. You can talk about love your neighbour but if you live that out over breakfast and in situations with your neighbour, who you spend a lot of time with, that’s very different isn’t it? However, the life of faith is not simply about warm feelings, it can be about that, but there’s also a serious intellectual thought element which has its part in the life of the university. It’s that combination which I find very attractive.

I really enjoy the interaction with the students, who make up most of congregation here. We try to emphasise that the house exists to complement the work of the college chapels, not to replace them. It’s a particular tradition, so we tend to have more elaborate ceremony and liturgical things. We try to emphasise the element of joy in community life and that’s a great context through which to meet students and to interact. I really enjoy that, I think if you didn’t then you’d be in the wrong place.

Professor Dorling’s presentation on his new book, A Better Politics: how government can make us happier, at Blackwell’s bookshop last Monday evening, began with a promising vision of a new politics, only to devolve into a tired rehearsal of Corbynite talking-points.

The talk commenced with a clear and compelling introduction to Professor Dorling’s book, whose primary conclusion was that governments need to move from targeting economic growth and wealth accumulation to focusing on individual happiness. Professor Dorling claimed that surveys showed there were significant gaps between reported happiness levels in different Western European countries: Finland, for instance, was much happier than the UK. Further studies revealed that individuals tended to be happier in societies with better health care and schooling; whilst disease and relationship breakdown were perceived as the most significant impediments to self-reported happiness.

From this, several proposals were formulated: better regulations to improve working conditions and commute times in order to reduce stress (a key cause of a variety of health and relationship problems), coupled with greater spending on health and education. The methodology of many of the studies was questionable; none seemed to account for linguistic or cultural differences in self reported happiness, nor consider whether reflective perceptions of happiness were equivalent to direct happiness over time, but this was a lucid and insightful beginning. Unfortunately, the beginning remained only that.

Ten minutes on the goals of happiness politics were followed by 50 on their means of achievement, means that boiled down to tropes of popular Corbynism. Apparently the media was conspiring against Labour (even to the extent of “the Guardian refusing to print a single one…[of Professor Dorling’s] articles about Corbyn”); Sadiq Khan rode Corbyn’s popular support to power (even though he had repeatedly dissociated himself from Corbyn beforehand); Council elections showed the popularity of the Corbynite programme (despite Labour facing a net loss of seats, and doing far worse than Blair or Miliband when they were opposition leaders); and it was contended that the reason Labour had lost seats in the recent Holyrood elections was because Labour was still seen as Blairite.

Amidst this deluge, a few interesting ideas were mentioned. One was the potential for a Labour/Green alliance similar to that between the Liberals and Labour on the turn of the 20th century. Another was the significance of the first-past-the-post electoral system in encouraging the major parties to both contest over the centre, producing similarities that reduced perceptions of voter agency, and hence encouraging the growing trend of nonvoting.

Whilst I have no doubt that Professor Dorling’s book will make for educated and enlightening reading, it was a pity that his speech did not make good on his promise.