In 2018, Cambridge University students rejected a motion to support Remembrance Sunday, citing concerns over “the glorification” of the event which is held annually in the UK “to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts”.
Cambridge University‘s Students' Union (CUSU) has claimed that having military personnel and weapons at Freshers' Fair events could damage students' mental health.
A relevant motion was proposed by Stella Swain, welfare and rights officer at the CUSU, who insisted that the university's military-related societies should be restricted from bringing firearms to the fairs.
There are three such societies at Cambridge University, the Officer Training Corps, the Royal Naval Unit and the Air Squadron, all of which receive funding from the UK Ministry of Defence.
“The presence of firearms and military personnel at [a] Freshers' Fair is alarming and off-putting for some students, and has the potential to detrimentally affect students' mental welfare,” the motion said.
It claimed that such presence indicates “implicit approval of their use, despite the links between military and firearms and violence on an international scale”.
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan, for his part, slammed the motion as “pathetic”, arguing that…
