Keelan Daye, Returning Officer and Extraordinary Returning Officer, has ruled that the motion of no confidence in Charlie Mackintosh is invalid. The motion was ruled invalid on the grounds of Rule 47(g)(i)(3) of the Union’s constitution, which states that no Motion of No Confidence shall specify any grounds.
The Returning Officer stated that it was clear that the text of the Motion of No Confidence began with a statement of the grounds on which the Motion had been moved.
The Motion had caused controversy in and outside of the Union due to it being raised over the Israeli Ambassador to the UK’s attendance at the Union’s Abraham Accords panel.
Some members have raised concerns to the President of the Union that the motion contained “Anti-Semitic” language, especially as the wording accusing the President of “conspiring with foreign agents” is a commonly used trope against Jewish people. The author of the motion, Hamzah Mahomed, told The Oxford Student that the President had told him the motion was an “antisemitic dog whistle”.
The Motion is said to have received 137 signatures with some confusion over any signatures submitted electronically. The Motion may not have passed even if it had not been ruled out of order.
The Union were adamant that the invitation of Tzipi Hotovely is in line with their free speech values and people are free to voice their opinions on any speaker the Union invites.
A Union member told OxStu “it would be ridiculous if a debating society in the UK couldn’t invite an ambassador to the UK to speak”.
Image description: The Oxford Union Building
Image credit:  http://www.barkerevans.com/ – Barker Evans, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17180304
