Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre in Kidlington will not be expanded, the Home Office revealed today, after months of protest and an independent review.

Campaigners had feared that the centre, currently able to hold 216 detainees, would be doubled in size.

However, in a letter sent to Oxford West and Abingdon MP Nicola Blackwood, James Brokenshire MP said,”The Home Secretary has asked officials to initiate a detailed piece of work on future requirements, to take account of recent and potential future legislative changes.

“In light of this, the Home Secretary has decided to withdraw the planning application for the proposed expansion of Campsfield House.”

Commenting on the expansion, Blackwood declared, “Finally, common sense prevails. I am delighted that the Home Secretary is withdrawing the planning application.

“These plans would have made Campsfield one of the largest detention centres in Europe and it was clear to me that the case set out by the Home Office did not justify building on Green Belt land.

“And of course there were serious problems with the design of the building and how it would work in practice.”

The news comes three weeks after Cherwell District Council postponed a decision on  the expansion, after a letter written on behalf of campaigners raised legal issues concerning insufficient consideration of evidence.  

The letter was written by a team of solicitors on behalf of the Stop Campsfield Expansion group.

Bill MacKeith, spokesperson for the Campaign to Close Campsfiel, declared, “This is a great victory. But the new government in May must implement the recommendations of the parliamentary Inquiry into Immigration Detention: a 28-day time limit to detention and full judicial oversight of individual decisions to detain.

“This would be a further step forward and entail some closures of detention centres. Above all, this is a chance to point to the need for the end of the barbaric imprisonment every year of 30,000 innocent people under 1971 Immigration Act powers. Close Campsfield. Close all immigration detention centres.”

In November, a letter from Oxford academics arguing against the expansion was sent to the Prime Minister. In response, the Home Office insisted that a larger Campsfield “would provide modern accommodation and facilities for detainees”, and that “detention and removal are essential and effective parts of immigration control.”

The government’s current policy on Immigration Detention has been heavily scrutinised in the run up to the election after Channel 4’s recent investigation into the abuse of detainees at Yarl’s Wood IRC, while Cherwell also uncovered claims of poor living conditions and self-harm by Campsfield detainees.

Two male Oxford students were allegedly told to stop kissing by a bouncer in Lava & Ignite Nightclub on Wednesday 4^th March.

According to one of the students involved, who wishes to remain anonymous, the bouncer then proceeded to watch the two for the rest of their time on the EDM floor, which the student presumed was an effort “to make sure we wouldn’t carry on” and left both feeling “very uncomfortable”.

The student told Cherwell, “Around an hour or so into the night, I began to kiss another male near the bar stools at the side of the EDM floor upstairs, near the entrance to the toilets. A bouncer came over, pulled me away from the guy by my shoulder, shook his head and quite bluntly just said “no”, indicating we should stop what we were doing. This was in spite of the fact that there was a heterosexual couple doing exactly the same thing almost directly next to us.

“As he walked away, we were astonished at what had just happened and it was quickly condemned by witnesses nearby who said how inappropriate and out of order it was. Nobody seemed to have a problem with it but him.”

Following the incident, the student emailed Lava & Ignite Oxford to report the bouncer’s behaviour, stating, “As a nightclub who regularly serves Oxford University students – a university which prides itself on accepting and celebrating people from of all sexual orientations, I feel your establishment should be ensuring at all times that your staff are behaving appropriately and respectfully to everyone who provides you custom.”

In response to the allegations, Lava & Ignite Oxford Nightclub told Cherwell, “We would like to apologise for any offence that may have been caused. Lava & Ignite is a well-run, professional venue and our main priority is to ensure that all of our guests have a great night out.

“We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind and would like to stress that this is an isolated complaint.  We are currently conducting a thorough investigation into this allegation with the company that provides our door teams and will, if necessary, take appropriate action.”

When describing the impact of the incident, the student commented, “This incident is upsetting for me for many reasons, one of which is the fact that I have only been openly bisexual for two months so this is the first act of discrimination I’ve experienced based on my sexuality.

“This incident is also only representative of the wider problem of homophobia from bouncers in Oxford and elsewhere. It is shocking that this sort of discrimination is still occurring at all, let alone in places like nightclubs which should be openly accepting of people of all sexual orientations.”

These allegations follow an incident in The Cellar Nightclub on 26th February, where two gay Oxford students were the victims of homophobic abuse.

Undergraduate Ally Pugh, who witnessed the event, commented, “I feel it was probably the bigotry of a single bouncer rather than the policy of Park End, but shouldn’t they have some kind of training or policy for their staff to make sure they don’t discriminate like this? It’s so unfair.

“It’s also shocking that the bouncers feel they can abuse their power like this – none of us were really in a state to do anything about it at the time, because had we said anything, I’m sure we would have been asked to leave.”

Rowan Davis, the Trans Rep for the LGBTQ Society and a member of its committee, said, “The repeated actions of clubs in Oxford towards LGBTQIA members of our community is representative of a wider queerphobia in this city and I strongly encourage people to get involved with the work that the LGBTQ Campaign and the LGBTQ Society is doing to stamp this out.

“We deserve to be able to go out and have a good time just as much as any of our cisgender, heterosexual friends and I hope that people continue to speak out about this important issue. As a side note if this happens to you and you feel up to it, please get in contact with the LGBTQ Society so that we can continue to fight this.”

Anyone involved in similar incidents can contact Oxford Friend LGBT Support on 01865 726893 and Nightline on 01865 270270.

General election hustings took place at St. Anne’s college on Monday evening with the local constituency candidates running in the upcoming General Election.

Three of the Oxford West and Abingdon candidates were present, including Sally Copley (Labour), Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat) and Larry Sanders (Green Party). The UKIP candidate Alan Harris declined to attend and the local Conservative MP Nicola Blackwood was unable to attend due to Parliamentary duties. The event was chaired by the Principal of St. Anne’s College, Tim Gardam, and approximately 50 students attended the town-hall style event.

The seat was a closely fought Tory-Lib Dem marginal at the last election, with the Conservative candidate, Nicola Blackwood, winning by 176 votes. Polling by Lord Ashcroft last summer suggested that the Tories now lead in the seat, on 38%, with the Lib Dems not far off the pace on 30% and Labour some way behind, on 18%. UKIP polled at 9%, the Greens 4%.

The Labour candidate, Copley, began her five minute speech by quoting John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” She said that her two main aims were to tackle the NHS, inequality and living costs, emphasising that the cuts under the current government have led to a dramatic increase in poverty and inequality and claiming that all Labour proposals were financially achievable. She praised Ed Miliband for standing up for ordinary working people and concluded that this was “a fascinating seat”.

The Liberal Democrat representative, Moran, then claimed that this was a centre-left seat, the sort of seat which will decide the outcome of the general election. She also stated that “whatever people think, this coalition government was stable”, asking for people not to judge them “on the one mistake but the 75 per cent of the rest of the manifesto we pushed through.” She said she was proud of the Liberal Democrats for introducing a new system of progressive tuition fees and pushing forward gay marriage.

The final candidate to speak, Sanders, stated that the Green Party’s top priorities were inequality and the NHS. He criticised the fact that one percent now own nearly 50 per cent of the world’s wealth as well as the fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS. Sanders also said that “climate change will destroy the livelihood of 10s of millions of people”. He concluded by arguing that Labour and the Liberal Democrats have been a disappointment to most of their people.

The first concern raised by the student audience was housing prices, with the fact that this area needed 24-30,000 a year yet only has a capacity for 10,000. Copley partly blamed the constraints of land supply and informed the audience that Labour would work towards changing the regulations of getting money to build affordable housing. Moran stated that “housing is a macro-issue”, revealing Liberal Democrat plans to build 300,000 more houses across the country and aiming for a 42 per cent increase in housing in the next 15 years. Meanwhile Sanders argued that this was a “very simple supply-demand issue” with a ratio of 16:1 for the price of housing compared to outrunnings in Oxfordshire.

When the discussion moved to social inequality, Copley stated that Labour was committed to enforcing the living wage and increasing the minimum wage and criticised tax dodging. Moran struck back, telling the crowd “a little bit of inequality is a good thing or we have nothing to aspire to. Just like a little bit of inflation is good.”

The relationship with the SNP came up. Sanders told the audience that “the future with Scotland has to do with the decency of this government.” Copley addressed the issue less directly, criticising the “broken and alienating” character of politics. Moran told the audience that “we would be willing to work with anyone other than UKIP”.

Immigration was a hot topic, though consensus reigned that immigration is a good thing. Moran said the Liberal Democrats wanted to re-introduce entrance checks while Copley said Labour pledged to employ 1,000 extra border staff. However, Sanders said the Green Party’s policy “is fairly relaxed. There is no policy to kick people out. We are not worried about immigration.”

The NHS came up last. Moran told us that the Liberal Democrats want to endorse the ‘Five way forward view’ published by NHS England last year to unify healthcare provision. Copley was more radical; repeal of the Health and Social Care Act. Sanders chipped into this onslaught on the 2012 NHS, pledging to end ‘privatisation.’

Hannah Lovell, co-chair of OULC, spoke to Cherwell about the importance of the event, commenting,“[They bring] politics more to life more often than not. The closest people get to politicians is watching Prime Minister’s questions.”

In response to the Conservative candidate not turning up, Lovell said “it is pretty shocking especially as these are her local constituents. She did not even bother to send a replacement.”

Roberto Weeden-Sanz, Oxford Union’s President-Elect for Trinity Term 2015, has automatically resigned his post after allegedly failing to attend three Union meetings this term. Weeden-Sanz, a member of St Benet’s Hall, was elected unopposed as Trinity’s President in Michaelmas 2014.

Under Union rule 23 (c)(ii)(2), “Any member of any Committee… having missed three ordinary meetings of that Committee without good reason in the same term, shall be deemed to have submitted his resignation from that Committee.”

As a result, if the allegations are correct, the rule requires Weeden-Sanz to automatically resign his position as President-Elect.

Under normal circumstances, Weeden-Sanz would be able to appeal the decision through a Special Adjournment Motion (SAM) to be debated at the next Public General Meeting. However, there are no further public general meetings scheduled for the remainder of Hilary term. Cherwell understands that the outgoing President, Lisa Wehden, is unlikely to call an emergency Public General Meeting before the end of term. It is therefore unlikely that a Public General Meeting could be held this term.

Weeden-Sanz would therefore have to wait until Trinity term to appeal. As a result he would not be President over the entirety of the vacation. An anonymous source explained that such a situation for an incoming President is “infeasible”.

Weeden-Sanz’s resignation would leave the Union without a President for Trinity term. It has been speculated, though not confirmed, that Librarian-Elect Stuart Webber from Somerville College could step in as President.

Rule 38(b)(vi) states, “The President-Elect shall be succeeded by the Librarian, the Librarian-Elect shall be succeeded by the Treasurer, and the Treasurer-elect shall be succeeded by the Secretary.”

In Trinity 2014, Mehrunissa Sajjad, the then Librarian-Elect, faced a similar procedure when she failed to attend three successive Library Committee meetings and had allegedly not given “good reason” for her absence formally. However the then President-Elect, Mayank Banerjee, proposed a SAM at a Public General Meeting to reverse the decision, a motion which subsequently passed after debate.

According to Union rules, “good reason” for absence includes attendance at Public Examinations, “disabling or infectious diseases”, as well as other engagements deemed to be pressing, unavoidable or important to the Society “by two-thirds of those present at the first meeting held at least 168 hours after the absence”. It has been claimed that Weeden-Sanz missed one of the meetings because he was at his grandmother’s funeral.

Roberto Weeden-Sanz was unavailable for comment.