Content note: This article contains discussion of war

To many, the idea of the Union holding a debate on sending troops to Ukraine so soon after the invasion was ‘tone deaf’ and ‘disgusting.’ One post on Camfess read: ‘Wouldn’t it be better to hold some sort of reflection on Ukraine and hear from Ukrainian students rather than hold a debate- which I presume is only for the conceited students who imagine dabbling in foreign policy one day?’. Even a former Cambridge SU president, Evie Aspinall, expressed her disapproval, tweeting that the Ukraine invasion ‘isn’t an edgy debate topic to get traction for your society. Real lives are at stake. Read the room.’

“Nobody ... treated this as if it was some fun intellectual exercise”

There are a number of reasons why this is so problematic; there is already an opportunity to reflect on Ukraine and hear from Ukrainian students as the Cambridge University Ukrainian Society holds a protest every day on King’s Parade - I would encourage everyone to attend this, and the many other events happening in Cambridge at this time. As for the blatant and cruel lie that the debate was only for ‘conceited students who imagine dabbling in foreign policy one day’, I would like to point out that among the speakers for the proposition was one whose girlfriend is currently sheltering from the Russian shelling in Kyiv, and in opposition was one who had escaped the horrors of the war in Afghanistan. James Vitali, the President of the Union, is from a family of service personnel himself. Real lives are at stake, and that is exactly why this topic needed to be debated. Nobody in the Union treated this as if it was some fun intellectual exercise.

Defending and promoting free debate has become sickeningly important as the events of the last week have shown us. The Cambridge Union’s slogan is ‘Defending free speech and debate since 1815’, and that is exactly what we should be doing. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an assault on a fledgling democracy, and therefore an attack on democracy across the world. It affects all of us.

The Cambridge Union is, after all, a debating society. That it faces criticism for holding a debate on one of the most impactful and devastating events in our lives so far seems somewhat absurd to me. We should, of course, at every opportunity be offering space for reflection on Ukraine, and to hear from Ukrainian students. Yet just doing this, and not debating how much further we should go to help Ukraine would be a grave mistake. The motion ‘This House would send troops to Ukraine’ could quite easily be rephrased as ‘This House doesn’t believe we are doing enough to help Ukraine’, because quite soon we will have exhausted all potential sanctions against Putin, and the only options left will be military intervention. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has already called for a no-fly zone to be imposed by NATO; should we not at least respect that request by debating it? We should all be listening to the horrors of Ukraine, but we should also be asking ourselves the deep and uncomfortable question of whether we are doing enough ourselves. That is why this terrifying and rightly controversial topic was debated.

“Democracy derives its power from the people”

Of course, any critic could make the point that this debate will have no direct impact on decision making. It is understandable that the debate was mistaken for a distasteful intellectual exercise for students with future political aspirations, as many Union debates are. However, we all have a stake in the war in Ukraine; nobody thinks that thousands dead and millions displaced is an abstract debating topic. Times of crisis call for not just for universal reflection but also universal debate, so that we understand why we are doing or not doing something. Democracy derives its power from the people, and it is these debates at the grassroot level which should be used as a basis for decision making in Westminster. As terrifying as it may seem, the case for military intervention is becoming ever more urgent, and so across the country we should all be debating what the implications of doing something vs doing nothing may be.

I am no ardent defender of the Cambridge Union. I cringed at the fact that this debate failed to attract a single female auditionee for either side of the argument; the fact that 70% of speakers this term are white men is shameful. The Union needs to do much more to shake off its image of being an old boys club, and become more inclusive for everyone. I also question what good military intervention would do - Afghanistan and Iraq have proven that this can have devastating consequences, even when it doesn’t involve going to war against a nuclear power. There is still much more to be done that doesn’t involve sending troops to Ukraine, most importantly overhauling our atrociously inhumane refugee policy. But I commend the Union for encouraging us to think more deeply about what the invasion of Ukraine means for us, because ‘disgust’ is what all of us should be feeling right now.

Слава Україні!, Slava Ukraini! (Glory to Ukraine!)