LONDON: Students at UK Conservative Party clubs are facing criticism after motions to invade Yemen and sink migrant vessels in the English Channel were planned for debates at an upcoming social event, The Times reported on Tuesday.
The “port and policy” night held by Conservative student groups from University College London and King’s College London was promoted on social media, with one Instagram post featuring an image of migrants on a small dinghy. The post was later edited to exclude the image after it was reported on by The Sun.
It came almost two weeks after five migrants died while trying to cross the English Channel in a boat.
A spokesman for Conservative Party headquarters said: “This is obviously not acceptable and we will be asking the student groups to remove this and cancel the event.”
The UCL Conservative Society, founded in 1908, is the oldest student Conservative association in England.
A previous event hosted by KCL faced criticism after it emerged that students had debated the reinstatement of the British Empire.
