Edinburgh’s SU is ready to protect you from problematic hand raising

Exciting times up in Edinburgh, where the Student’s Association (EUSA) have managed to sprint forward in the race to be the most batshit crazy safe space bullshit story of the year so far.

Last week, Imogen Wilson, vice-president of academic affairs at EUSA, was threatened with expulsion from a student council meeting after a safe space complaint was made against her. What could she possibly have done?  Did she pull a shank on another attendee? Was Wilson in full Nazi SS dress uniform? Perhaps she launched an astonishingly racist tirade at her fellow council members, complete with more N-words than a Tarantino movie?

Well, obviously not. In fact, Wilson did something much, much worse than any of the above. Something so mind-shreddingly disturbing that I’m going to have to take this opportunity to warn you not to read on if you’re a member of Cuntry Living. Here it goes:

Imogen Wilson raised her arm. She raised her arm in disagreement, after she was accused by another speaker of failing to respond to an open letter. 

I hope you’re alright after reading that. I know it took me quite a long time to get over the horror of the imagined scene. In the carnage that followed this appalling arm gesture, a motion was raised to eject Wilson from the room. It was mercifully defeated by 33 votes to 18. Wilson was threatened with another complaint after shaking her head while someone was speaking but mercifully that didn’t go to a vote.

EUSA’s safe space policy highlights that members should refrain from hand gestures which “denote disagreement” or “indicate disagreement with a point or points being made.”

What’s striking about this and all the other Student Politics Is Really Weird Now stories – banning or trying to ban Germaine Greer, Peter Tatchell, Julie Bindel and others from speaking, getting angry at an irrelevant statue while being too scared to bring it down, refusing to condemn ISIS but condemning Israel and UKIP – is how stupid they are, and how they’re starting to make the rest of society think we’re all dickheads. You can’t pick up the Sunday Times without seeing an old people fulminating about us, how we’re childish and illiberal, how we don’t party as hard as their generation did. The Times made it the substance of their April Fool this year. Young people are literally a laughing stock.

Most of this is a myth. There are still plenty of us who don’t wear shoes and drink Red Stripe all year round. But you cannot disagree that the politics of some people are getting embarrassing for the rest of us.

And consider that Wilson, who you’d expect see EUSA’s policies for the pathetic mess that they are, has instead launched a defence of them. Let’s hope she wasn’t shaking her head, or raising her hand, as she tweeted the below: