Hundreds of students arrived to protest against Donald TrumpLouis Ashworth

by Sam Harrison

This article is 7 years old

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• Over a thousand people joined a march through Cambridge

• The march was followed by a series of speeches

• It came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to ban citizens from seven majority-Muslim states from entering the USA

7:29pm The rally is wrapping up now, so the liveblog will follow suit. It was a vibrant and defiant protest against an executive order which has shocked many around the world. Over the next four years, we shall most likely be here again.

7:18pm Jackson continues: "Give more refugees the opportunity to stand there.

"As a world institution we should say: 'We can do better. We should do better.'"

7:15pm Now interviewing Josh Jackson, one of CUSU's delegates to the National Union of Students AGM in April.

"At the NUS I will say: students of this country do not believe in racism."

https://twitter.com/TomHughesMclure/status/826145155107414016

7:09pm A British Kurd is talking about the refugee crisis and seeing a 5-year-old who had travelled all the way to Vienna without even a jacket.

7:07pm A speaker from Cambridge Defend Education says: "Look to your peers to see if they are ok, ask if you can help them." Adds: "Punching a Nazi is always self-defence."

7:06pm "Those who love make humanity great again."

7:03pm A student whose family mostly lives in America says: "My family is human kind. We all matter. This is not the end, we will keep going."

7:00pm Another speaker says of Trump and the possibility of a state visit: "If he comes, protest, take to the streets. Turn your backs on him. Show the orange man the stick."

https://twitter.com/Puffles2010/status/826138349006123008

6:59pm Brown: "Let's say 'No' to Brexit, let's say 'No' to the demagogues. We will not let you divide us."

6:57pm Paul Brown of Cambridge Stays: "I'm proud to stand with my friends in towns and cities across the US who are, like us, standing up in protest."

6:55pm "I am tired of hearing about British and American values. Britian was built on the colonial powers of the straight white male. America was built on the backs of slaves on a land that was not their own."

6:53pm A Mexican-American from Texas says: "We do not want a wall. We are not rapists. No human should be blanketed with these prejudices."

6:51pm  Anne Alexander from the Cambridge branch of the academics' union the UCU has read a statement from the union's General Secretary Sally Hunt: "We need to get out into the street. We need to be mobilising to say that when Trump comes, if he does come, we will shut this country down."

6:49pm "We cannot forgive oiurselves for standing back and being on the wrong side of history," says a speaker.

"There is a wonderful civic tradition here in Cambridge; when there has been oppressio in the world, people of Cambridge have stood up and been counted."

6:46pm If you refresh this page, the live feed should now appear at the top.

6:43pm "No human is illegal" chants the crowd.

6:40pm A speaker is calling for work stoppages if Trump comes to the UK. A petition to stop Trump from making a state visit has reached over a million signatures, but the government is refusing to entertain it.

6:35pm Our Facebook live feed is up! We're trying to embed it here - hold tight.

6:32pm  He concludes: "People look back on history and think, 'If I were there I would have done something.' We are now in history. Do something, say something, make a difference."

6:30pm Huppert: "Boris Johnson said he would stand up for human rights of British nationals. We should stand up for everybody's human rights."

6:29pm Former Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert speaks: "Cambridge will not stand for this, something so alien to our values. It is utterly unacceptable."

6:28pm The same PhD student also attacks Theresa May for failing to condmen the ban - she claims that it was partly British intervention which created the refugee crisis.

6:27pm A Muslim American PhD student says: "this administration is making American hate again."

6:26pm  A speaker from Movement for Justice calls upon the crowd to work to end the suffering of women at the local detention centre of Yarl's Wood.

6:23pm The Vice-Chancellor of the University Sir Leszek Borysiewicz has put out a statement on Trump's executive order in which he says:

"The recent executive order issued by the United States government, imposing a ban on nationals of seven Muslim-majority nations, is an affront to one of the most fundamental human freedoms."

You can read the full statement here: https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/vice-chancellors-statement-on-us-travel-ban

6:19pm  Sophie's got pictures of some excellent signs, so I'll try to share as many of them with you with you as possible. 

6:17pm The vicar of St Mary's Church has come out into the doorway to standamongst the protesters.

6:14pm I'm expecting a Facebook live feed soon, but so far no word.

6:13pm Rousing statement from Said Jalali: "We look around this historic place and we say, 'Not again. This will not stand!'" 

6:11pm The previous chant does raise an important point. Many people hoped that once in office, trump would tone down his rhetoric. Instead, he's signed executive orders to carry out two his of flagship campaign promises within the first fortnight of his presidency. It could be a rough four years for liberals.

6:10pm Latest chant: "Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go!"

6:07pm Our other Senior News Editor Sophie Penney is also tweeting - follow her at @spenney4

6:06pm The graduate student adds: "You have every right to be mad at your country, but you're mad at the wrong people - be mad at the political and economic elite."

6:03pm A graduate student from New York says: "this order must be declared as a hate crime".

6:02pm An American student has stood up to speak. He says that he is an "unlikely" speaker, "not only because I'm an American, or because I'm a former Muslim, but because I'm a conservative. Conservatism is not about victimising, ostracising, it's about conserving the values that made our country great."

5:59pm Crowd could be as large as 2000, in fact. It's stretching down King's Parade, but no-once can tell quite how far.

5:58pm "Racism isn't cool, Donald Trump's not fit to rule" is the latest chant - there have been some absolute crackers. 

5:57pm The crowd is large enough that people at the back are struggling to hear the speakers. About a thousand people, I'm told, which is more or less what we were expecting. Expect Trump to tweet that it was a far larger crowd than any that protested against Obama.

5:52pm Sahar Ataii adds that "to be called a refugee is to lose your identity to your refugee status entirely."

5:51pm One of our correspondents tells me that many signs simply read "WTF", which sums it all up nicely.

5:48pm Tiara Sahar Ataii, an Iranian student, has told the crowd that Trump is part of an American tradition which has made a mess in the Middle East and refuses to clean it up.

5:46pm Lewis Herbert, leader of the council, has spoken and offered Zeichner's regards in absentia. He condemned the government's "double policy".

5:44pm Shortly followed by "No Ban, No Wall!"

5:42pm New chant: "Donald Trump, go away! Racist, sexist, anti-gay!"

5:34pm The crowd is chanting "Refugees are here to stay, let's deport Theresa May". It's undeniably catchy.

5:30pm Said Jalali, who will be speaking later, has a message for Donald Trump: "Engage. Engage with the people you're banning. Engage with your opposition."

5:28pm Varsity will be live on Facebook later to catch the speeches, so be sure to catch that. They're expected to begin at around 6.

5:24pm Perhaps unsurprisingly, Trump has never exactly endeared himself to Cambridge. When he won the election in November, students hung ‘messages of hope and solidarity’ in the Sidgwick site, and a rally was held at Guildhall against his inauguration nine days ago).

5:22pm Some people at the protest seem to be handing out Labour Party leaflets, according to one of our correspondents.

5:17pm There has been some confusion today about the precise terms of the ban. Yesterday, the Foreign Office claimed that dual citizens will be exempted after a huge backlash against the government. However, today the US Embassy seems to have contradicted them, stating that dual citizens will still be covered by the ban.

5:15pm Sahar Atali, an MML student and Iranian citizen born in the UK who under the ban will be unable to visit her cousins in America: "essentially these are apartheid policies."

She added: "I don't think any country should be defined as a terrorist country."

5:11pm Local councillor and candidate for the Labour nomination in the forthcoming mayoral race Kevin Price has just told us that we need to "make noise in Cambridge".

5:07pm Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner will not be attending the protest today, as he is in Parliament hoping to ask the Foreign Secretary for developments on the issue. However, earlier he did put out this statement:

“Trump's reckless behaviour within hours of the British Prime Minister's visit shows that the early visit by Theresa May was poorly judged. Other, more experienced leaders, who were also not so desperate to curry favour, were more sensible. 

“The travel ban is insulting and unacceptable, and there should be no question of any presidential visit to the UK while this remains in place. The Conservatives have put the United Kingdom in a terrible position, alienating our European neighbours, and now reliant on a deal with an unpredictable and very dangerous American President.”

5:04pm Welcome to the Varsity liveblog! This is Sam Harrison following the Varsity news team at today’s march against Donald Trump. Our Editor Millie Brierley and our Editor-at-Large Louis Ashworth will be tweeting at the event, so do follow them too at @milliebrierley and @Louis_Ashworth.

On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries - Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya - from entering the US for 90 days.

The order provoked an immediate backlash in the USA and in Britain, which will be hosting a number of marches, in London, Oxford, Sheffield, Nottingham, and of course Cambridge. Protesters are also angry that the UK government has so far equivocated on the ban

The order could have a direct impact on Cambridge students with dual citizenship of any of the nations named in the order, who stand to lose out on years abroad, but the protest also expresses people’s fears that the US is gearing up for a sharp illiberal turn under its new President.

As ever on the liveblogs, all views expressed are my own.

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