Cambridge University professor tells Green MP she should ‘de-skank and shut up’

Peter Sarris, a history professor at Cambridge University, has advised a Green Party MP to “de-skank and shut up” in a recent social media post.

Following an interview with Hannah Spencer, Green MP for Gorton and Denton, in which she alleged a culture of drinking in Parliament, the news outlet Politics Joe shared an X post with her quote: “You can smell the alcohol when people are in between votes.”

Replying to this post, Peter Sarris, a professorial fellow at Trinity College, told his 12.7k followers on X: “Most Green smell of dope and are manifest soap dodgers, so if I were her I would de-skank and shut up.”

In other responses to the same post by PoliticsJoe, Sarris referred to Spencer as “Eco-Taliban” and reiterated the claims that most Greens “smell of weed” and display “obvious dodging of soap.”

These comments are not the only ones Sarris has made about Spencer and the Green Party this week. On Wednesday 29th April, he replied to a separate post about Spencer, saying: “Her party literally wants to legalise all drugs,” followed by emojis of the Russian flag, clowns and monkeys.

Hannah Spencer, a former plumber who recently won the Gorton and Denton by-election, has been vocal about her opinion that politicians in the commons should abstain from drinking on the job.

Commenting on a post by The Daily Britain that posed the question: “Is the Green Party now more in touch with ordinary working people than Labour?”, Sarris made the sarcastic remark: “Yeah because every plumber and plasterer I’ve met is teetotal,” before adding, in reference to Spencer: “She is fake. They are fake, it’s all fake.”

Hannah Spencer, via Wikimedia Commons

In yet another post about the Green Party, Sarris suggested the “Islamist wing of the Greens have probably told her she can’t shake hands with men” when a Green candidate refused to shake a Reform candidate’s hand.

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Sarris is Professorial fellow at Trinity in history and has previously held posts at All Souls College, Oxford and Rice University, Texas. His research is primarily based around late antiquity and Byzantium.

The recent tweets are not the first time Sarris has been politically vocal online. In 2014, while running for election on the Cambridge city council, Sarris called a pensioner “gaga” for supporting a Liberal Democrat candidate and even questioned whether she was “even still alive.” Sarris initially claimed he never made the comment, and that his Twitter account had been hacked. He later clarified a housemate has used his account and apologised to the candidate.

Trinity College, Cambridge

Across Sarris’ X profile, he has expressed many further strong opinions. In one post, he criticised the Labour government for expanding free school meals and free breakfast clubs, writing: “Pay for your own kids. If you should choose to have them you should feed them. Especially with the massive ‘child benefit’ uplift. FFS.” It is estimated that the government’s scheme will lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030.

In other posts, he condemned both the King and Keir Starmer for claiming “Diversity is our greatest strength” and that ‘St George’s cross stands for unity over hatred and decency over division.” He followed up these posts by telling US President Donald Trump: “Please invade.”

A Trinity College spokesperson said: “The views expressed, which were made in a personal capacity, do not in any way represent the views of Trinity College. Trinity recognises the right of college members to express their views, within the law, however disagreeable or controversial.”

Peter Sarris, Hannah Spencer, Cambridge University, the Faculty of History, the Green Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrat Party, Keir Starmer and Buckingham Palace have been contacted for comment.

Featured image (left before edits) via House of Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 and (right) LinkedIn