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Politics must not serve as a barrier to education

Ti-Jean Martin
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Politics must not serve as a barrier to education

As this article goes to print, Oxford University is missing two of its offer-holders. In a haunting echo of the trials faced by approximately 78 Palestinian students last academic year, several of whom held places at Oxford, two Sudanese doctors are unable to begin master’s courses at the University this October. This comes after the High Court dismissed their legal challenge to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s ‘emergency brake’ visa policy, which also affects applicants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Myanmar. 

As the Oxford Sudanese Society stated in its recent announcement, the decision is a “collective penalty” against students who have faced extraordinary barriers in accessing higher education. Based on rhetoric accusing students from the four nations of “abusing” the visa system to claim asylum in the UK, it is symptomatic of an en vogue desire to pander to anti-immigration sentiments. This flies in the face of the educational meritocracy successive governments have said they wanted to achieve.

If the UK holds itself to be a centre of educational excellence, it cannot deny deserving students access to universities on political grounds. The Home Office’s own figures, moreover, do not scream “abuse of the system”. In 2025, the four affected nations made up only 0.7% of study visas granted; 380 of the 1,480 Sudanese students given visas between 2021 and 2025 went on to claim asylum.

The rhetoric used to prevent talented individuals from taking up deserved places at Oxford and elsewhere, therefore, appears to be no more than a string of buzzwords. Effectively, the government is punishing students for falling foul of the current political landscape’s value systems. It did the same to the aforementioned Palestinian students, who could not be granted visas without registering biometric information that has been impossible to acquire in Gaza since 2023. 

After a summer of uncertainty, at least six of these scholars reached Oxford last academic year, benefiting from the University’s Palestine Crisis Sponsorship Scheme, which allowed them to carry out the biometrics process in Jordan. Yet many students without sponsorship remain unable to acquire the necessary documents. Some, who cannot meet the requirement of having to leave dependent families in a warzone, have had to make what one St Hilda’s College offer-holder described as the “heartbreaking choice” to remain. Many are therefore as shut off from British education as their Sudanese counterparts. 

There is hypocrisy to this at every level. It is, of course, obvious that falsely claiming that students are “exploiting British generosity” contravenes both universities’ efforts to attract diverse intellectual talent and the basic human right to education. But on a deeper level, we must examine British complicity, both contemporary and historical, in the current state of the countries the government has denied visa access to. 

There are no visa offices in the Gaza Strip partly because it is being bombarded by a state the UK continues to have a defence relationship with. There are, arguably, conflicts in Sudan, Afghanistan, and Myanmar partly because of British actions dating from the peak of the British Empire to the present day – and it is largely because of these conflicts that student visa-holders would choose to seek asylum. 

And if they were to seek asylum in such great numbers, why would it be a problem? Are we not facing a shortage of skilled, specialised minds, for example in the medical profession? Would the NHS not benefit from the government allowing students to study International Health, Genomic Medicine, or Health Service Improvement (a selection of the MSc courses that Sudanese and Palestinian offer-holders held places for), rather than blocking them from entering the country? 

Most saddeningly, this decision disadvantages students aiming to use higher education to better ameliorate the problems facing their home nations. One of the Sudanese students barred from entering the country saw an education at Oxford as her way to “help rebuild health systems in a country devastated by war”. It is paradoxical to take the current situation in Sudan as justification for preventing its students from accessing an education that could help lessen its severity. 

Every student with an offer from Oxford deserves to take up their place, regardless of nationality. By denying a whole generation of students their future on trumped-up charges of asylum ‘abuse’, the government is dealing direct harm to both Britain and the wider world. 

“Everyone has the right to education… higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 26(1))

University rankings can be misleading

Saba Ahmadzadeh Noughani
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University rankings can be misleading

When I came very close to rejecting Oxford for the University of Exeter, a non-British friend of my mother said to me: “I hadn’t heard of Exeter until now, but the name Oxford? I’ve known it since I was a child.” Another person remarked that “you can pick Exeter, but as good as it may be, Oxford’s prestige will never be taken away”. 

The Exeter course of my choice, Middle East Studies, had for many years ranked higher than the equivalent course at Oxford. But since Oxford had been consistently ranked first overall for the past decade, I felt it would come across as foolish to reject what is often dubbed ‘the best university in the world’ for an institution that was, while outstanding, not ranked in the top ten globally.

Where I study, or who has studied there before me, has never been of any importance nor a source of pride for me, but it is widely accepted that some of the best writers, poets, scientists and public figures the world has ever seen received an Oxbridge education. Therefore, Oxford and Cambridge being ranked outside the top three universities in the UK was not something I ever expected to read. 

And yet, in this year’s The Sunday Times Good University Guide, Oxford was ranked four places below St Andrews, which came first.

Last year, the guide ranked LSE first in the UK, even though Oxford was ranked first globally by both the QS World University Rankings and Times Higher Education for the tenth consecutive year.

The most recent university rankings, published by Times Higher Education (THE) last week, place Oxford as the  ‘number one for a record 11th consecutive year’. Oxford holds the longest reign at number one of any university in the history of the ranking.

Chancellor William Hague wrote on LinkedIn on Wednesday that “Rankings are only one measure of a great university, but to sustain this position for 11 consecutive years in an increasingly competitive world is a tremendous achievement.”

While The Sunday Times ranks St Andrews 1st in the UK, the QS World University Rankings place it at 115th, and the Times Higher Education places it at 185th worldwide. 

In contrast, The Sunday Times ranked Oxford  5th in the UK, but the QS World University Rankings placed Oxford 4th globally, while Times Higher Education (THE) ranked it 1st.

These numbers may initially seem contradictory and confusing on the surface, but asking which university is the best  in the UK, or globally, simply depends on who you ask and which factors they consider.

The Times and The Sunday Times UK ranking is first and foremost designed around the undergraduate student experience and prioritises factors like student satisfaction, teaching quality, graduate prospects, entry standards, research quality, and more.

By contrast, both the Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings assess global university performance and place greater emphasis on global academic position and research standing. They prioritise academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations, global research networks, international students and staff, and research productivity.

While one ranking is concerned with the undergraduate student experience in Britain, the global rankings, which consistently place Oxford among the top 5 universities globally , place  more weight on a university’s global academic influence and profile.

When comparing St Andrews to Oxford, it is important to recognise that St Andrews is a relatively small and undergraduate-focused university. Oxford, by contrast, is a large, internationally oriented institution with considerably greater research output and global influence. I would not necessarily expect Oxford to rank 1st in rankings that focus on the day-to-day undergraduate experience. 

In fact, the current Sunday Times ranking explains Oxford’s fall to fifth place partly by pointing to its student feedback performance. THE has no direct student-satisfaction measure; instead, it considers research environment and quality, industry knowledge and transfer, and reputation surveys.

It is therefore not surprising that St Andrews, despite not dominating global research to the same extent as Oxford, has scored highly on the factors that a UK undergraduate league table like The Sunday Times prioritises, such as student satisfaction.

As someone who also initially applied to St Andrews before withdrawing, and later accepted an offer from Oxford, St Andrews now being ranked first in the UK by The Sunday Times does not make me regret my choice because I understand what that ranking was primarily measuring. It does not focus on global academic reputation, research influence, international standing, or fully capture the breadth and scale of research.

Oxford’s reputation is built upon nine centuries of academic history. Its rival, Cambridge, was founded by former Oxford academics. Yet despite St Andrews ranking first as the UK’s best university, I doubt we will see an influx of students rejecting their Oxford offers for St Andrews overnight. 

In fact, when I once told a former teacher that “Oxford is just a name”, they replied: “A name that holds power in so many rooms.” 

St Andrews attained 1st position according to one particular ranking and its specific set of criteria, but even if, for the sake of argument, THE did not rank Oxford 1st, I would feel no different. No ranking table that can erase Oxford’s institutional reputation and traditional prestige.

A jarring Mann: ‘Fatherland’ (2026) in review

Freddie Lewis-Hedley
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A jarring Mann: ‘Fatherland’ (2026) in review

Fatherland, which recounts celebrated Modernist author Thomas Mann’s return to a Germany in wreck and rubble, deals with great personal malaise against a backdrop of great political unease. The year is 1949 and Mann is giving a reading tour through East and West Germany, at least ostensibly hoping to edify and uplift his war-traumatised audience. It is clear, though, that Mann’s grandiloquence will not conjure a better order into being. Some of the brightest shots illuminate gaping expanses of rubble between the town halls and churches where Mann holds forth to packed crowds, and after these addresses, drunken candour and old wartime songs abound. All of this is observed by Mann’s daughter Erika, played by Sandra Hüller, who does a good job of balancing critical winces and bitter-sympathetic smiles as she is dragged between events, silent except in her capacity as an interpreter for Mann’s’ interviews to a cloying international press. She also acts as the family’s moral conscience. Her brother Klaus, played by August Diehl, is profoundly depressed and not in touch with his haughty ‘magician’ father, and when, after a devastating incident Erika also loses contact, the daughter-father drama intensifies until emotional release is forced in the film’s last moments. 

I watched Fatherland shortly before the tense mid-September Berlin elections where the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) and far-left Die Linke party both gained significant ground, so at least the atmosphere, if not the specifics of the political turbulence depicted in the film, was of a piece with my surroundings. The Kino International venue, huddled near the centre of the dreadful, looming Communist concrete of Alexanderplatz also put me in mind of the East-West tensions strikingly portrayed in the film by the story’s progress eastwards, across checkpoints and into sparser rural space; my interest was primed for a scintillating political piece. 

Instead, though, I found the personal drama far more compelling than the film’s political commentary, which often felt simplistic and lacking in the former’s emotional intelligence. The first scene, a study of Klaus in strikingly focused despair over a literary and personal crisis of meaning, shows the 30-something’s lithe, sinewy torso in exposing, crisp black-and-white. There’s a shadowy, blurred one-night-stand in the background above the bed (Klaus was gay but, intriguingly, the long-haired lover is genuinely androgynous), and as they move passively, perhaps indifferently, Klaus writhes about in angst and indecision while on the phone to Erika. It is one of the longest scenes of the film, and the camera’s static, steady character study reminded me of some of Bergman’s best psychological work in Scenes from a Marriage. Klaus’ initiating scene casts an ironising shadow over the ensuing bourgeois soirees on his father’s speaking tour, and his brief screen presence conveys as much character as Zischler manages to in his role as the main Mann. 

I always admire when cinema makes political events moving; films as diverse as The Battle of Algiers, Paths of Glory and Steven Spielberg’s Munich have all brought me to tears with visually eloquent set pieces set in war or its aftermath. Fatherland is not so articulate. Pawlikowski relies on easter egg quasi-gags to poke fun at history’s villains, including Gustaf Gründgens, a Nazi-era thespian (though no Leni Riefenstahl; the remarkable Gründgens is a prime case study for the ‘art versus artist’ dilemma) and friend of the Manns who is portrayed as a charmless, bigoted representative of the postwar German intelligentsia in a brief, brusque interaction with Erika. I refer readers to Uncle Max in The Sound of Music for a complex, queasily likeable Nazi sympathiser, and to Mephisto for a nuanced confrontation with Gründgens himself. 

Other objects of political criticism are crass, materialist American propagandists in the West and, more interestingly, a slimy, Mephistopheles-quoting Soviet general and his East German underling from the culture ministry. This last official follows the party line with Mann, but his sometimes faltering, conflicted manner concisely betrays all the sorrow, uncertainty and daunting weight of his countrymen’s past and future. Occasionally, the cinematography achieves the same political poignance: in a devastated West German town, the camera lingers on a bleach-white empty church hall, suggesting false innocence and secular angst. 

Indeed, black-and-white is deployed to great effect. Many mornings on the road are shot through with searing sunlight turned eerily silver and cold by cinematographer Lukasz Zal, and the sombre aesthetic somehow enhances a closing burst of Bach from the organ of an almost-abandoned East German church, the site of Mann’s much belated emotional unloading – a scene which, albeit, has by my reckoning somehow more bathos than pathos. 

I would almost venture to say that Fatherland much more resembles a certain kind of cosy, historical dramedy than a serious political piece. Mann appears too hapless and bumbling to offer us a protagonist apt to deal with the ongoing turmoil within his family and fatherland. Well-paced and clocking in under 90 minutes, it goes down enjoyably, though maybe too comfortably, but its occasional flashes of emotional incisiveness are to be commended. 

Anti-hunting group protests against alleged illegal hunt on St John’s College land

Orla McMahon
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Anti-hunting group protests against alleged illegal hunt on St John’s College land

Anti-hunting protesters gathered outside the Sheldonian Theatre during matriculation on Saturday to protest against alleged illegal hunting activities on land owned by St John’s College.

Locals Against the Warwickshire Hunt allege that on 1st September an illegal hunt crossed onto land owned by St John’s at Heathcote Farm, near Stratford-upon-Avon. The organisation opposes and monitors the Warwickshire Hunt, a historic fox hunting pack dating back to the 18th century. The organisation told Cherwell that the Warwickshire hunts’ actions result in “cruel and barbaric torment of wildlife” and that they “blight local communities”.

Officially, hunting groups in England can only practise trail hunting, in which an artificial scent is laid for hounds to follow. Using hounds to kill or maim wild animals, or using trail hunting as a cover for hunting an animal, is illegal under the Hunting Act 2004. Locals Against Warwickshire Hunt allege the hunt breaks these laws to illegally hunt foxes. 

St John’s issued a statement on 3rd September denying that illegal hunting took place on their land. They note that the hunt travelled across Heathcote Farm with “express consent” of the College’s tenants. The College also stated that it “would not knowingly permit unlawful activity to take place on its property” and that it had “found no evidence” that an offence was committed.

The College met with representatives from Locals Against the Warwickshire Hunt on 5th October to discuss their concerns; however, the group still decided to go ahead with their planned protest last Saturday 17th October. 

Around 20 individuals gathered outside of the Sheldonian Theatre at 10am, some holding placards calling for the College to ban trail hunting on its lands. Oxfordshire Coalition of Animal Advocates and Oxfordshire Hunt Saboteurs also joined the group. As students came out of the Sheldonian for matriculation, the protesters told them to tell their colleges to “stop the hunt”.

At the protest, Brian, a spokesperson for Locals Against the Warwickshire Hunt, told Cherwell: “Local people have had enough… we have people that go out and get their roads blocked… they get hounds through their gardens… pets disappearing. It can’t go on.

“What we’d really like would be for St John’s College to say that’s it. We’re not allowing it on our land any more. And then we’re all friends again.”

Another member of Locals Against the Warwickshire Hunt told Cherwell: “It’s just not acceptable. They [Warwickshire Hunt] had an opportunity over 20 years ago to legitimise their actions. Trail hunting was brought in to allow them to do things, providing they called their dogs away. They use it as a smokescreen… They know that they have broken the law. They do it deliberately because they have a bloodlust for murdering animals.”

Following the meeting with Locals Against the Warwickshire Hunt, St John’s has stated it is considering the matter through its statutory governing processes, which will ensure a “potentially significant decision” is made about trail hunting on College land. In the meantime, the College has temporarily removed permission for Warwickshire Hunt to access its land until November 2026. 

Oxford University and councils announce partnership to build Greenway cycle lanes

Vanisha Karna
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Oxford University and councils announce partnership to build Greenway cycle lanes

Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council, and the University of Oxford have announced plans to build expansive new walking and cycling routes in the Greenways plan. The new Greenways would link Oxford to nearby towns and villages, connecting 200,000 residents to the city on traffic-free paths. 

The plans include 18 proposed routes, most extending 5 to 8 miles around Oxford. They will involve creating new routes, as well as upgrading and incorporating existing ones. The plans would cover around 60 towns and villages within cycling distance, including Woodstock, Abingdon, and Kidlington.  

All routes will be car-free, either through paths next to busy roads, as on Marston Ferry Road, or completely traffic-free paths. One route will go from the Peartree Roundabout at the end of Woodstock Road to Blenheim Palace. 

Oxford University told Cherwell: “The University keenly supports the Oxford Greenways Masterplan, which will help create a better, more livable city for everyone”, adding “we are committed to helping our staff and students commute… in a healthy, sustainable way”. Between 2023 and 2024, the University committed £33,000 to the project. 

Oxford University has maintained its top position in the Times Higher Education rankings globally for its 11th consecutive year. However, in certain categories its lead has narrowed, with MIT outperforming Oxford on citation impact and research strength. When announcing the plans earlier this month, the vice-chancellor emphasised the importance of attracting research talent. 

The University has also been building a growing number of facilities outside the centre of the city, including the Oxford University Science Park in Begbroke, which would receive better traffic-free connections if proposed routes were to be implemented. There are plans to build 1,800 new homes near Begbroke, and the plans would make commuting to the centre more feasible. 

While the concepts of each route have been agreed, construction is expected to be delivered in stages, dependent on investments from the council and government as well as developer contributions and partnerships. 

Local and business leaders in Oxford sleep out for homelessness

Barnaby Carter
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Local and business leaders in Oxford sleep out for homelessness

Forty-eight business and community leaders slept out in University Parks to raise money for homelessness as part of the annual Oxfordshire CEO sleepout on 8th October. 

The charity event has raised over £45,000, with 655 donations at the time of publication. The event attracted figures from local politics and the University of Oxford alike, including Labour MP for Oxford East Anneliese Dodds, City Councillor Mike Rowley, University Church Vicar William Lamb and Director of Accommodation at Jesus College Angela Unsworth. Unsworth has participated every year since it began, and Jesus covered logistics on the night, with its catering team helping prepare for the event. 

Unsworth told Cherwell: “Even when the weather has been atrocious, it does us all good to remember that we can go home, have a shower, and breakfast. We don’t have the problem of drying out all our kit, finding dry bedding, and having to do it all again the next night.” Before trying to catch some sleep, participants heard from Jack and Tony, who talked about their journey out of homelessness and experience with it. Unsworth also highlighted talking to Steve every morning, a 70-year-old man sleeping rough in the city centre who cannot afford accommodation. Unsworth told Cherwell: “These are good people who just need a chance.” 

CEO Sleepout, an organisation dedicated to uniting the business community against homelessness, held the event in partnership with Oxfordshire Homeless Movement (OHM). They hold similar sleep outs in cities across the UK, and have raised £4.5 million for various charities to date. Oxford CEO Sleepout is organised by Oxfordshire Homeless Movement, the partnership of all the organisations helping people experiencing homelessness across the County. Over the past 5 years, OHM has raised almost £300,000 for its project work and partners from the Sleepout events.

Yvonne Pinner, Project Director of OHM, told Cherwell: “Oxfordshire Homeless Movement (OHM) is lucky enough to have our core costs paid for by a donor, and so all the funds raised will go towards delivery of our project work and partners. This means that all money raised will help someone locally.” Pinner also added that students can get involved in the initiative by “talking about the event to lecturers, college staff, and management and getting them to sign up”.

More than 1,700 people died on the streets of the UK in 2025, including 51 children, both figures being the highest ever recorded. Although the national number of households assessed as threatened with homelessness dropped by 4.5% from January to March 2025 compared with the same figure in 2024, in Oxford the number doubled. Oxford’s average monthly rent reached £1,875 in 2025, an 11.5% annual increase, being the highest average monthly rent outside London. As many as 41 individuals were reported as sleeping rough in November 2024, but this figure likely underreports the population of homeless women in Oxford. This is because women are much more likely to experience ‘hidden homelessness’, staying in hidden or unsafe places to avoid danger on the street. 

Homeless Oxfordshire’s CEO Simon Hewett-Avison has called for a greater investment in social housing in the city. He also highlights that addressing rent hikes isn’t the only way to go about the problem, saying that: “The average age of death in the homeless population is early 40s and the incidence of poor physical and mental health within the homeless population far outweighs that of society as a whole”. He has called to “work more closely across sectors”. 

Students can join a number of organisations tackling homelessness, including Oxford Student Social Action Coalition, Food Rescuers, and Oxford Mutual Aid. 

Record 15,000 runners participate in Oxford Half Marathon

Gavriella Epstein-Lightman
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Record 15,000 runners participate in Oxford Half Marathon

A record 15,000 runners took to the streets of Oxford to complete the annual half marathon on Sunday 11th October. Thousands of supporters lined the course to cheer the runners. Alex Miell-Ingram won the race in 1 hour, 7 minutes, and 21 seconds. 

Many ran the half marathon for charity. Helen and Douglas House, the world’s first children’s hospice, was the headline charity partner, with 300 people running in support. The charity supports terminally ill children and their families in Oxfordshire. This year, it aims to raise £200,000, the cost of funding a hospice bed for one year. 

Twenty people ran for Asylum Welcome, a charity which provides advice and support for refugees and asylum seekers living in Oxfordshire. Among them was the charity’s Joint CEO Dr Hari Reed. The group hope to raise £10,000. 

The Lord Mayor of Oxford, Chewe Munkonge, was among the 15,000 runners on Sunday. He ran the half marathon to raise funds for Sobell House Hospice, one of this year’s charities, which provides specialist palliative care. Munkonge said he would not wear his mayoral regalia on the course, saying: “This Sunday, I’ll be swapping the mayoral chains for running shoes”. “This will be my first half marathon, so there are definitely some nerves,” he added. 

Simon Lewthwaite, who has epilepsy, ran his first half marathon in an official NHS patient hospital gown to raise money for Oxford Hospitals Charity. He said that completing it with epilepsy would be “an even greater test of resilience and determination”.

The Oxford Half Marathon began in 1988 and was won by athlete Bill Domoney in 1 hour 11 minutes and 14 seconds. The 51 Rotary clubs in the area organised the race to raise money for the PolioPlus campaign, a programme aiming to eliminate six killer diseases. People came from overseas to run past Oxford’s historic hotspots, and the oldest entrant, veteran Arthur Stone, was aged 70 at the time. Oxford’s Rotary clubs continued to organise the event until 1993. 

The half marathon returned in 2011, with 1,800 runners. Just two years later, in 2013, it had 5,500 runners, and the number of runners and spectators has grown steadily year on year. In 2025, more than 13,000 runners signed up and places sold out in January. That year, the event raised over £1.5 million for more than 180 charities. 

Cherwell spoke to students who ran the race. Ioanna Bezirtzoglou, a third-year DPhil student at Pembroke, ran as part of Oxford Girls’ Running Club and volunteered at the race last year. She ran dressed as a princess. “I love the fact I have a community as encouraging as Oxford Girls Running,” Ioanna told Cherwell. “Having volunteered last year at the Oxford half, it’s so exciting to be able to run it this year!”

Dina Graham from Pembroke told Cherwell that “the energy from the crowd really carried me through and was a highlight throughout”. “People stood outside their homes with bowls of sweets that you could grab,” she added. Dina ran for Maggie’s, a charity for people with cancer. “It was motivating to raise money to support them. It gave a purpose and a reason why I’m running.”

This year, the race sold out general entries in less than three weeks – three months faster than in 2025. This puts it ahead of wider industry averages, even as the half marathon industry is expanding overall. The latest Mass Participation Pulse report shows events are selling out ten days earlier than in 2024, and almost a month earlier than 2023. The Hackney Half Marathon, for instance, has also sold out its tickets faster year on year, having sold out in two days for the 2026 race. 

With record popularity and turnout in 2026, the Oxford Half has now cemented its place in Oxford’s sporting calendar. What was once an event with little more than 1,000 runners has now become an unmissable fixture involving 15,000. 

Image credits: Maryam Nawaz, with permission

Students join march against the far right at matriculation

Cherwell News
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Students join march against the far right at matriculation

Approximately 300 demonstrators joined the ‘Oxford Unites Against the Far Right’ unity march Saturday afternoon, amid matriculation ceremonies. More than 23 local organisations took part in the peaceful march from Cowley Road to the Sheldonian Theatre, challenging the far right’s rise across the UK. 

Oxford Stand Up To Racism organised the march, which included representatives from political parties and matriculating students at the University of Oxford. 

A representative from Stand Up to Racism, Monique, opened the rally: “We are going to show the love of Oxford today. We’ve got to find our humanity – it feels like this country has forgotten that.” Speaking to Cherwell, she added: “The message is simple: everyone should be welcome. That is the way England has always been, giving refuge to those who need it.”

In her speech, Labour Councillor for Blackbird Leys Lubna Arshad referenced the City Council’s commitment to make Oxford an anti-racist city. “We must turn those commitments into action,” she told the crowd. “The far right does not speak for Oxford. The far right will not divide us.”

A small group within the crowd booed the councillor’s speech, shouting “F*ck the Labour Party” and “Labour is a racist Party”. The crowd hushed them, and Stand Up To Racism said: “Today is for unity. The far right wants to divide us. We are all speaking the same message.” At the end of the event, Ian McKendrich, a representative for Oxfordshire Stand Up To Racism, said: “We need unity irrespective of our differences on other issues.”

Crowds of newly matriculated students in sub fusc cheered as the march approached the Sheldonian Theatre, some joining in to sing ‘Bella ciao’ down the High Street. One matriculant told Cherwell: “I wanted to show there’s no place in Oxford for the far right, as much as Ghislaine Maxwell and Boris Johnson have come from here.” 

Emma Jones, speaking on behalf of the Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed, called the detention centre “one of the biggest symbols of division in Oxford”. Since its reopening in December 2025, the centre has drawn regular protests. “Immigration detention is racist,” she told the crowd, “for more than 30 years, people in Oxfordshire have refused to accept Campsfield. The biggest danger of a thing like Campsfield is that we become accustomed to it.” Plans from the government to more than double Campsfield’s capacity are currently undergoing a public inquiry. 

The demonstrators held placards including “Make Nazis afraid again”, and banners which called for the protection of Oxford as a city of sanctuary. Seth, the former Co-Chair of Oxford Labour Club, told Cherwell: “These marches show the people to whom the far right poses a genuine, tangible threat that they are not the only ones who have a voice, that there are people everywhere in the community that care and that will stand up with them.”

“It achieves genuine things,” he added. “Look at Shabana Mahmood – she has changed her policy on immigration rules that she imposed last November because of these constant protests.”

This is the second consecutive year that Stand Up To Racism has led the march in Oxford. Reflecting on last year’s demonstration, a drummer from Extinction Rebellion told Cherwell: “I think it was appreciated by people who can feel under attack at the moment. People come out of their houses clapping and thanking [us] – it is in solidarity with those people too.” 

Oxford is one of eight cities to hold unity marches this Saturday. Speaking with Cherwell, Ines Wilhelm, the newly elected Chair for the Oxfordshire Green Party, said that “this is a happy protest. Lots of people are coming out, having a good time, and showing that they care about each other.” 

Additional reporting by Mair Andrews, Stanley Arlidge, and Freya Robson.

A year abroad for all

Leo Jones
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A year abroad for all

As Michaelmas rolls around once again, I open my phone to the unmistakable signs of a new academic year at Oxford. Society committee pleas, ads for upcoming club nights, and emails welcoming a new wave of freshers fill my inbox and feed. But this year, scrolling through those familiar notifications leaves me with a feeling I did not expect. 

Now in my third year, the time has finally come for the long-anticipated, even longer-in-the-making ‘year abroad’. While friends return to Oxford, I find myself watching the new academic year unfold from a distance – no collections to revise for, no frantic search for a last-minute BOP costume, and no Plush Thursday to inevitably mark the weekend drawing near. 

As I sit writing this from Buenos Aires, Argentina, I feel deeply conflicted. Of course, there is a certain melancholy in watching friends slip so effortlessly back into the rhythms of university life. It can be oddly unsettling to see a place that has played such a significant part in my adult life carry on as though I had never left.

Yet simultaneously, I am glad not to be there. The concept of lining up for hall food, pulling an all-nighter in the library, or squeezing into the queue at Bully is significantly less appealing from 7,000 miles away. For all the nostalgia that comes with watching Oxford from afar, distance has also given me something I didn’t realise was needed: perspective. 

And no, this is not going to be a long rambling of how I ‘found myself on my gap yah’. Although, somewhere between getting on the wrong bus to work and confidently preparing mate in entirely the wrong way, I have started to wonder why an experience this valuable should be reserved for students studying certain subjects. 

There is something liberating about being somewhere where nobody knows your name, your college, or your subject. While abroad, I am no longer simply an Oxford student navigating the same routines of term-time life; I am an outsider, and, most importantly, a beginner again. The world suddenly feels much bigger than the few square miles I had grown accustomed to calling home.

It would be easy to romanticise this feeling. I am not Anthony Bourdain, travelling the world with a camera crew filming an episode of Parts Unknown. I am, instead, entirely reliant on a far less glamorous student loan, a questionably downloaded eSIM, and what appears to be a complete inability to read Google Maps.

Indeed, it can at times be overwhelming to think just how much I have left behind. Over two years’ worth of friendships, routines and rituals do not simply disappear because you board a flight. Friends are still there, returning to university for their final year, before graduating and stepping into the increasingly structured world of work. From a distance, it can feel as though everyone else is moving forward along a path that I have temporarily stepped away from.

For my friends back in Oxford, that step is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. With 78% of graduates reportedly worried about finding employment, and 71.9% already in professional-level roles within just 15 months of graduating, it is hardly surprising that the job market can feel overwhelmingly competitive. Talks of internships now dominate a FaceTime catch-up, and for many, there is little choice but to climb to the first rung of the corporate ladder as soon as possible. The opportunity to travel, experiment, and explore a different way of living (both personally and professionally) can all too easily be pushed aside in favour of getting on with the ‘more serious’ route of starting a career. 

That is precisely what makes the time away so valuable. It is a rare opportunity to step away from the well-trodden path for a while, without having to abandon it altogether. As more UK universities begin to offer years abroad across a wider range of subjects, it seems worth asking why Oxford should be any different.

The benefits are far from merely personal. I am now working at an Argentine news network, using a language I have spent years studying, but in an environment where getting the grammar right is rather less theoretical than it is in a classroom. Language students are fortunate in this respect: learning a language inevitably means learning something about the people and culture that speak it. But what about everyone else?

At its core, it is an exercise in empathy and human connection. A PPE student can encounter political and economic ideas outside the British context; a historian can experience another country’s relationship with its past; a scientist can apply their technical skills in a professional environment shaped by an entirely different set of assumptions. With funding available to make these experiences more accessible, there is little reason for the year abroad to remain the preserve of language students. Studying something is one thing; being forced to apply it somewhere unfamiliar is another.

With this may come the feeling of being out of one’s depth. But, certainly for me, that is the most important part. At a time when immigration, integration, and national identity occupy so much of British political debate, there is value in experiencing what it actually feels like to enter a society in which you do not automatically understand the language, the customs, or the unwritten rules. 

Here, I am a newcomer trying to work out how things are done. More than once, I have forgotten to kiss the cheek of a superior at work, or have asked for completely the wrong thing at a supermarket. With that comes a certain humility, as you become constantly more aware that integration is not simply a matter of arriving somewhere and expecting to feel at home – an all-too common attitude of ‘Brits abroad’. 

And perhaps that is the greatest argument for going abroad. Not because everyone needs to spend a Bourdain-esque year in South America, or because life in Oxford is somehow too small. It is because it is surprisingly easy to mistake the familiar for the universal. Living somewhere else forces you to question assumptions you did not even realise you had – about work, education, politics and culture, or even something as simple as whether a greeting calls for a firm handshake or a warm embrace and kiss on the cheek. 

Eventually, I will return to Oxford, and life will presumably slip back into its familiar rhythms. But I hope to return with a little more perspective on the bubble I have spent two years inhabiting – less convinced that Oxford is the centre of the world, and considerably more curious about everything beyond it.

St Edmund Hall unveils new eco-friendly accommodation 

Isa Bojaj
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St Edmund Hall unveils new eco-friendly accommodation 

St Edmund Hall has opened new, sustainability-focused accommodation in Norham Gardens, one of Oxford’s most affluent neighbourhoods.

 The College describes the buildings, which took three years to construct, as an “exemplar” of sustainability. Designed by architects Wright & Wright LLP, they are certified with a Passivhaus standard, widely regarded as the industry benchmark for energy efficiency, and were built using “sustainably sourced and low-embodied carbon materials”. According to a press release on the Teddy Hall website, the buildings will use 70% less energy than the typical modern building. 

It contains 127 en-suite study rooms, split across three new buildings: Willis House, Ashton House, and Elliott House, on the nearly 50-year-old Norham St Edmund site. The buildings, which back onto University Parks, are powered at least in part by solar panels and are heated by air-source heat pumps. 

The rooms include heated towel racks, big double beds, and dimmable lights. Despite the luxury, the College kept the nightly rate in line with the rest of its Norham housing. The College told Cherwell that it “recognises the need to keep rents as low as possible” and that its accommodation costs are “below the median of all Oxford colleges”. By that standard, tenants are expected to pay around £30 a night. 

Rooms on the site will be reserved for Teddy Hall returning undergraduates. They will not be available to postgraduates and, by extension, not be offered through the Oxford University Collegiate Accommodation System, now in its second year of opening college rooms to students from other colleges. The accommodation will allow Teddy Hall to accommodate all undergraduates for their whole degree. 

The development’s outdoor spaces are boasted as climate-resilient and biodiverse, with landscaped gardens and lawns. For budding geographers and biologists, the most intriguing feature may be an ecology pond. 

Chancellor William Hague said in a press release: “Norham St Edmund is a world-leading blueprint for future student accommodation projects and sustainable building design, both in Oxford and beyond. I look forward to seeing it serve a thriving college community for generations to come.

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