Students urge Burnham to shun Cambridge Union after Le Pen visit

The Cambridge Universities Labour Club will be writing to shadow health secretary Andy Burnham urging him to withdraw from speaking in a Cambridge Union Society debate, in response to the society’s hosting of the French neo-fascist leader Marine Le Pen at an event today. The club urged its members to join a demonstration outside the prestigious debating society from this afternoon, to assert that “racism and fascism has no place in Cambridge”.

The Front National has already boasted on its website of the prestige of the Cambridge Union.

Andy Burnham – an alumnus of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam College – is honorary President of the Labour Club, and they have urged him to pull out of an upcoming debate (entitled “This house believes that New Labour ruined Britain”).

We spoke to Burnham’s office this afternoon, who told us that no decision has yet been made on the shadow health secretary’s appearance at the Cambridge Union.