University of Edinburgh lecturer accused of spreading pro-Putin propaganda by Tory MP

Environmental Political Theory Professor, Tim Hayward, has been accused of spreading pro-Putin propaganda by Robert Halfon MP, the Conservative Chair of the Education Select Committee.

In the House of Commons, Halfon accused Hayward of being a “useful idiot for President Putin’s atrocities” after he quote-tweeted Russia’s ambassador to the UN about potential war crimes in Ukraine.

When The Edinburgh Tab asked him to explain his tweets and the political backlash to them, Hayward warned: “It is becoming harder to hear any view other than that approved by those in power”.

He then added: “Even enemies need to know what the other is thinking and how they explain their actions”.

The controversy relates to a Russian air force bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol that has killed at least three people (including a pregnant woman and a newborn baby).

Ukrainian officials, the British Government, and the European Union have all argued targeting civilians in this way constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

However, the Russian Government reject this view – and instead claimed the maternity hospital had been taken over by Ukrainian extremists and all of the patients had been transferred.

Several Kremlin officials have taken to Twitter to repeat these claims – but Twitter has taken down some of these tweets already due to the misinformation found within them.

In spite of this, Hayward retweeted a Kremlin official that falsely claimed: “This hospital has been turned into a military object by radicals”.

He then added: “As long as we’re still able to hear two sides of the story we should continue striving to do so,” – something that experts have said is “helping the Russian war effort”.

Separately, Hayward has also tweeted: “Anyone who wants to try and share any information other than that approved by those with power in the West is getting hounded like never before. The truth does not need such desperate protection.”

At first, he was criticised by experts who warned his views were putting students at risk if he repeated them in a classroom.

Dave Rich, Director of Policy at the Community Security Trust, told LBC: “We have seen over the years that Russia uses its propaganda as part of its war effort to cover-up what it is doing, and when British academics amplify and endorse that completely false propaganda, whether they mean to or not, effectively they are helping the Russian war effort and they are giving that message to directly to their students.”

Then, in the House of Commons, Halfon raised Hayward’s comments in a question directed to Education Minister Nadhim Zahawi on the risk of UK academics spreading misinformation.

Alongside other academics whom he made similar accusations about, he told the House: “At Edinburgh, Professor Tim Hayward retweeted a Russian representative to the UN describing the attack on Mariupol’s hospital as “fake news””.

Then, he asked Zahawi: “Will my right hon. friend contact these universities directly to stop them acting as useful idiots for President Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine?”

To this, the Education Secretary said: “I am grateful to the Chair of the Education Committee for raising this issue. The Minister for Higher and Further Education is already on the case and is contacting those universities. Putin and his cronies are a malign influence on anyone in this country buying their false narrative. I repeat: it is a false and dangerous narrative and we will crack down on it hard.”

When The Edinburgh Tab asked about his tweets and the accusations that he was spreading pro-Putin propaganda, Hayward warned: “It is naively and dangerously mistaken to think one side has a monopoly on propaganda.”

“The fact is, as we know, propaganda especially thrives in war time. Therefore, citizens who want to understand the underlying dynamics of a war need to try and find ways to look beyond the propaganda. Comparing propaganda narratives can play a part in this. Being aware of how our own understandings can be unwittingly shaped by propaganda also is very important.

“I sincerely worry at the way alternative news sources are getting shut down just now.”

He has also since changed his Twitter bio to: “If wars can be started by lies, they can be stopped by truth.” in an apparent rebuke of the controversy his tweets have caused so far.

When asked about Hayward’s comments, to us a spokesperson for the University of Edinburgh said” ‘The University of Edinburgh has publicly stated that we support the Universities UK statement on Ukraine. More information on that and the support we’ve been giving to members of our community is available here – https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/students/2022/ukraine

“We do not comment on individual members of our staff.”

Hayward, who co-convenes the Global Justice and Citizenship course, is not alone amongst UK academics in his attitudes towards the conflict in Ukraine.

It is not the first time Hayward’s comments on foreign conflict and war have caused controversy, offence, and accusations of fake news.

In 2019, he was forced to deny allegations that he was “Pro-Assad” due to postings on his personal blog which appeared to suggest that he believed the allegations of war crimes (including using chemical weapons on his own citizens) by President Assad to be fabricated.

At the time, The Edinburgh Tab reported his comments were putting off Syrian staff and students from working or studying at Edinburgh – and were making current Syrian students feel “unsafe”.

More recently, Hayward has written in an academic capacity about ‘”fake news”, publishing an article entitled “Conspiracy Theory”: the case for being critically receptive in the Journal of Social Philosophy. The article argued “hypotheses of conspiracy can sometimes be verified”.

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