UCU Scotland President nonsensically claims Union is committed to fighting antisemitism seconds before rejecting the International Definition of Antisemitism and defending David Miller

In an absurd speech, the President of the University and College Union (UCU) Scotland nonsensically claimed that the Union is committed to fighting antisemitism just seconds before rejecting the International Definition of Antisemitism and defending the disgraced academic David Miller.

Mr Miller was fired by the University of Bristol over comments he had made about Jewish students, a month after Campaign Against Antisemitism commenced a lawsuit on behalf of current students against the institution and amidst a Jewish communal outcry.

He is a conspiracy theorist with a history of controversy relating to Jewish students. In one outburst, he asserted that “Zionism is racism”, declared his objective “to end Zionism as a functioning ideology of the world” and accused the Bristol University Jewish Society of being part of a worldwide Zionist conspiracy, adding that it is “fundamental to Zionism to encourage Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism”. At the same online event, Mr Miller also observed that the Jewish Society and the Union of Jewish Students are Zionist, thereby implying that Jewish students (and the wider Jewish community) inherently “encourage Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism”.

He also portrayed the Definition as an attack on free speech and accused the Israeli Government of engaging in an “all-out attack” on the global Left as part of an “attempt by the Israelis to impose their will all over the world”. In comments reminiscent of the darkest years of the United Nations, Mr Miller insisted that “Zionism is racism” and asked how “we defeat the ideology of Zionism in practice”, “how is Zionism ended” and about the way “to end Zionism as a functioning ideology of the world”.

In a video posted by the ‘Harry’s Place’ Twitter account, Jeanette Findlay, the Union’s President, said that the Union is “committed to anti-racism in all its forms” including antisemitism, before stating that “it is for that reason that we have rejected the IHRA Definition.”

Ms Findlay went on to erroneously claim that the Definition had been “widely discredited” and that its primary use was to defend Israel from criticism. 

Addressing Mr Miller’s release from the University, Ms Findlay said: “We are very clear in UCU Scotland in our opposition to the treatment of David Miller by the University of Bristol. I was personally horrified and shocked when I heard that he had been sacked.”

She described Mr Miller as the victim of a “vicious and sustained assault” before stating that “it is [the Union’s] greatest wish that he will be reinstated.”

UCU has a horrendous reputation in the Jewish community, and this is not the first time its Scotland branch has defended Mr Miller.