The Jason Arday affair has repeatedly been shown to have been nothing like as bad, or even as unusual, as it was presented, and there may well be more such correction to come. The whole thing was got up over the summer to distract from the true scandal of Lola Salem, itself extending to the emergence of a Parisian-style Far Right intellectual and cultural scene in London with connections to the very hearts of Reform UK and the Conservative Party.
The self-appointed inquiry into Arday announced its existence and composition in one of the two magazines closest to Salem and to the already convicted Henry Hopwood-Phillips. Another writer for both, no less than Nathan Cofnas himself, is soon to speak at the Oxford college from which Salem has been suspended. He is to do so under the aegis of Reform, which clearly regards his startling views and vocabulary not only as open to academic interrogation, which of course they are, but as worthy of a platform provided explicitly by that party. That is before mentioning his questionable qualifications. Cofnas has never written anything except “race realism”. Not about it. The thing itself. In this decade, first Cambridge and then Ghent have appointed him in that full knowledge, thereby declaring his field to be within the bounds of academic discourse, a declaration that has been repeated by those who have petitioned in his cause. Again, not just the study of it, but “race realism” itself.
When Arday died, Cofnas gave a triumphant interview in which he said that “after the revolution”, he would be “the Head of the Department of Eugenics and Race Science at Harvard”. No inference that he was joking could have been drawn from the record on which Cambridge had appointed this alien, to whom a United Kingdom visa had therefore been granted and by whom it is clearly still held. Ghent and Belgium have the same questions to answer, especially since Ghent reinstated Cofnas on the orders of Donald Trump via Ambassador Bill White. As with the proscription of Palestine Action, to support that is to support Trump. If you already did, then so much for national sovereignty. But if not, then, again, you are saying that Cofnas’s views were academically respectable. Fascism is the shield and sword of bourgeois liberalism. The liberal bourgeoisie always chooses it when the choice has to be made, a story a century old.
It was well before the 2022 appointment of Cofnas to Cambridge that Evolutionary Psychological Science published him at least twice, including once in dialogue with Edward Dutton, whom I knew at Durham, where he once tried to seduce me after Mass, so that I know his little secret. In 2018, Evolutionary Psychological Science also published this masterpiece by Dutton, who is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Mankind Quarterly, which he used to edit. Another member is Dr Adel Batterjee of Jeddah, the founder of the Benevolence International Foundation, which was placed under UN sanctions because it was a front for funding al-Qaeda. On the Editorial Board of Evolutionary Psychological Science is the archetypal Epstein Class academic, Professor Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, although one does have to wonder for how much longer, but not because the revolution would replace his Chair and person with those of the very Cofnas in whose defence he was organising most prominently, suggesting that he would be quite at home in the New Order. Pinker is one of the self-appointed inquirers into the case of Arday.
Perhaps they are all planning to decamp to Oxford? Cofnas stands no chance of a return to Cambridge, and Ghent is allowing him only to work from home even for research purposes, with a complete ban from teaching. But he seems to be welcome at Oxford. He may not be the only one, as Helen Warrell, Wilf Vall and Ramsay Hodgson write:
James Orr, Reform UK’s former head of policy, has stood down from his two academic management roles at the University of Cambridge due to concerns about “media scrutiny”. An FT investigation last month revealed that Orr, an associate professor of philosophy of religion and friend of US vice-president JD Vance, had been subject to two complaints by former Cambridge students. One of the complaints led to a £5,000 payout by the university and a written apology from the Divinity faculty.
Orr was suspended by Reform after a subsequent undercover sting broadcast by Channel 4 News contained allegations that he breached electoral law by soliciting political donations from foreign citizens. Cambridge has not revealed whether it is conducting an internal investigation into Orr. However, he had quietly stood down from his most substantial role as the chair of the Faculty of Divinity’s undergraduate exam board — which involves oversight of end-of-year exams and final grades for all students — according to several people familiar with the matter. He would also no longer take up his expected position as convener of the philosophy of religion master’s degree this year, these people said. As a result, his responsibilities will now be largely limited to giving student supervisions and lecturing.
The university indicated that the decision had been taken by the head of Orr’s department after he requested a discussion about his duties for the coming year in light of “recent media scrutiny”. Orr said that he had asked for “different administrative responsibilities for this academic year” in the hope he would cause colleagues fewer distractions, following “media scrutiny in recent weeks”. He declined to say what his new administrative responsibilities are.
When responding to questions from the FT in August, Orr said he was expecting to take up both roles — as exam board chair and masters course convener — when term started this month. “I have been chair and deputy chair for the board of undergraduate examiners . . . for every year since my post began (with the exception of the academic year . . . when I was on sabbatical),” he said. “I will continue in this role next academic year.” He said he had “regularly” been director of the MPhil in philosophy of religion and would be again in this current academic year.
Orr was appointed Reform’s head of policy in February, in an effort by the party’s leader Nigel Farage to bolster its links with academia and build closer ties with US Maga Republicans. A Channel 4 broadcast in early September showed Orr and another senior Reform aide, Dan Jukes, in conversations with a man purporting to arrange illicit political donations. Later that month, the Metropolitan Police announced that it was conducting a criminal investigation into whether the party had broken electoral law. Both Orr and Jukes have denied wrongdoing. An internal Reform inquiry cleared them of having acted illegally, but they remain suspended from the party.
The FT’s investigation included allegations about conflicts of interest and safeguarding relating to Orr’s housing of students in his own home — akin to a proto-college which he has described as a haven for “refugees” from the main university. It also included allegations that Orr’s role as head of policy at Reform had been detrimental to his university job. When contacted for the FT investigation, Orr denied any wrongdoing and said no disciplinary action had been taken against him. He said he had “received repeated assurances” from the university that the housing of students in his home was “perfectly in order”. The university said Orr had followed its rules about students living in his home, and that it had “no reason to believe . . . [Orr’s external jobs] have adversely affected his performance of his contractual duties”.
Earlier this month, Orr resumed lecturing undergraduates in ethics. However, he no longer has a pigeonhole in the faculty and his picture has been removed from the board of staff in the department’s entrance hall. Michael Banner, director of studies in theology at Trinity College, Cambridge, said he was “surprised” Orr would no longer be taking up his academic management roles. “When a number of us wrote to the Vice-Chancellor sharing our concerns about his commitment to his teaching and other responsibilities, we were rather brushed off,” said Banner, an expert in ethics in public life. “And yet it looks as if, behind the scenes, there are concerns about Orr’s ability to hold such positions as chair of examiners.”
Jason Scott-Warren, a Cambridge professor and a member of the University Council, the principal executive and policymaking body, told the FT that Cambridge should investigate whether Orr’s role as head of policy at Reform “led him to neglect his academic duties, and whether his unethical behaviour in that role renders him unfit to continue in post”. Cambridge declined to say whether it is investigating Orr, but is understood to be assessing the appropriate next steps.
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