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Forge Press Elections 2019 Pullout Everything you need to know about your new 2019/20 SU Officers
THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
ISSUE 130 | FRIDAY 1ST MARCH 2019 | FREE
MP Chris Williamson suspended by Labour after Sheffield event Ewan Somerville
New SU Officer Team announced! Full story p7. Image: Rebekah Lowri
University accused of ‘betrayal’ over their failure to divest from fossil fuels Ewan Somerville
The University has been accused of ‘betraying’ staff and students after it emerged that management has failed to deliver on its promise to divest from fossil fuels.
A heated campaign launched in 2015 by students and Sheffield Students’ Union saw the University commit to “eliminate exposure to investments linked to explicit environmental damage” by the following academic year. But it can be revealed that in
their accounts dated July 2018, the university has more than £1.5 million in companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Ultrapar Participa Com and Total. The investments, existing three years after the university pledged to have... (cont. on p5)
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An MP and Jeremy Corbyn ally at the centre of the Sheffield Labour Students row has been suspended from Labour after he declared the party “too apologetic” over antisemitism. Footage from an event organised by the Sheffield branch of grassroots pro-Corbyn group Momentum sees Chris Williamson tell a cheering crowd of activists that Labour was being “demonised as a racist, bigoted party”. Addressing the audience of leftist activists on Saturday, the MP for Derby North went on to say “we have backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we have been too apologetic.” Forge Press reported on the talk, which has since made national headlines, last week after Gabe Milne, the president of Sheffield Jewish Society (JSoc), called Williamson’s return to the city following the scandal on campus last term “a disgrace”. The row erupted after footage of the talk was unearthed by The Yorkshire Post on Tuesday evening, and by Wednesday afternoon Williamson had made numerous
national headlines and was trending across the country on Twitter prompting him to say he “deeply regrets” the remarks. At a meeting shortly before the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions at which Mr Corbyn and Jennie Formby, the party’s general secretary, were present, it was decided that Williamson should be suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) immediately. The decision was met with relief, as Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson called Williamson’s comments “deliberately inflammatory”, while Labour MP Wes Streeting tweeted: “We got there eventually and I hope this sends a message”. Lilian Greenwood, who joined several other Labour MPs in lodging complaints about Williamson’s behaviour to top party figures, told The Guardian that the MP “seems to be very deliberately sticking two fingers up at the Jewish community and his colleagues”. Others demanded the party take further disciplinary action and called for the MP be dismissed altogether, with former leader Ed Miliband calling it “a test” for Corbyn. Williamson has been suspended “pending investigation” but Labour MP Margaret... (cont. on p5)