Former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage will visit the College Historical Society (the Hist) this week, just months after severe backlash from society members caused it to rescind an honour offered to him.
Farage, who credits himself for the UK’s decision to leave the EU, will address members of the Hist but will not receive the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse, which was originally offered to him. A discussion on Friday at 3pm in the GMB on “Anglo-Irish relations and the future of Europe” will be followed by a questions-and-answers session moderated by Pat Leahy, the Political Editor of the Irish Times.
Farage, despite leaving UKIP, still has the opportunity to make headlines. Earlier this year, he talked openly about his possible support for a second referendum on the UK’s relationship to the EU.
In October, following an announcement that Farage would be receiving the award in early 2018, previous and current members alike condemned the decision to invite Farage in the Hist’s members’ Facebook group. Farage was described in Facebook posts as a “white supremacist” and a “racist”.
Amid the backlash, a screenshot posted in a Hist group showed Hist Auditor Paul Molloy defending his decision to offer Farage the award: “The medal is not an endorsement of any view or action, anymore than votes on motions, debates or panel discussions are. The society does not take corporate positions on issues and nor should it.”
Molloy listed a variety of guests invited to speak to the Hist this year: “The Society is hosting a number of individuals who are both pro-European and have made contributions to both integration and defending the single market.”
However, he later apologised to members, former and current, in the Facebook group: “It was wrong for me to extend an invitation to Nigel Farage in the manner which I did. I offer my sincerest apologies for any offence which has been caused from doing so.”
He said that the awarding of guests was not “a way to endorse any particular viewpoint individuals may hold, but rather to recognise the impact which they have made which has them stand out as people the Society looks to invite”. Molloy said that the Hist should be “a platform of free enquiry and debate”.
“It is clear in retrospect both to myself and the General Committee that the conferral of the medal would be received by many as an endorsement of the views which Nigel Farage holds”, he said.
Former Auditor Michael Coleman posted in the Hist members Facebook group to express his “disgust” at the invitation of Farage. “As an ex-Auditor, it’s genuinely upsetting that a society I poured so much of my college life into would give a platform to (and present an award to) virulent racism and white supremacy”, he said.
The Hist’s Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse has this year been awarded to Civil Rights activist Al Sharpton, former Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, singer-songwriter Patrick Wolf and former Secretary General of the European Commission Catherine Day.
In recent years, Trinity’s societies have been increasingly scrutinised for the guests they invite to speak on campus. Last year, the Society for International Affairs’s (SOFIA) event with the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland was cancelled after a protest by Students for Justice in Palestine blocked his entry to the lecture theatre.
