Peter Burke
Ex-Chair
Oxford For Europe
5 December 2025
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Oxford for Europe AGM, 2 December 2025
Following on from the European Movement AGM, held in Oxford, Oxford for Europe held its own AGM at Wesley Memorial Hall on 2 December.
The main business of the meeting was to elect our officers. The nominations received corresponded to the vacancies, so the following were elected unopposed:
Chair: John Tanner
Secretary: Lizzy Price
Treasurer: Cathy Wood.
Annual report to AGM from the outgoing chair
A changed world
At the time of our last AGM on 4th November 2024 it seems hard to believe now that Trump‘s re-election was still in the future. When it happened we predicted that this would have a huge impact on world politics, but I think most of us underestimated just how far that would go. It has had massive implications for this country, and had had the effect of accelerating an already established rightward shift in politics in the UK and Europe. With the return of Trump’s mini-me Farage to the political arena here, the people who brought Brexit are now, despite the fact that they should have been totally discredited, knocking on the door of power. Of course that has made us think what our mission going forward will be. We still strive to undo the harms of Brexit, but it goes further than that: we and people like us need to recognise the dangers ahead. We need to prevent a situation in which a gaslit electorate turns the UK into an international pariah with little or no hope of evidence-based policies ever being followed again. Sadly we have a government which is cowed by the Reform party, and the promised ‘reset’ so far has been less than impressive. The good news from our point of view is that the trend towards seeing the folly of Brexit has continued, and Labour ministers, including the Chancellor, have started speaking openly and without caveat about its harmful effects. Add to that, the shift in world politics has made it even more vital that the democracies of Europe stick together.
Fighting the good fight
For us locally in Oxford, we have continued to fight the good fight, although of course as with any organisation there is active debate about the best way to do that. We have continued to meet on a regular basis as a core group, 7 times this year, and I think most of us find it refreshing that we are now doing so predominantly face-to-face. We are grateful to John Tanner for facilitating the use of the Town Hall for this purpose.
We have had 3 significant and broadly successful public meetings. The first two were in person and at a new venue, New Road Baptist Church. They featured Prof. Timothy Garton Ash in November, and Calum Miller MP, Baroness Jan Royall and Cecilia Jastrzembska in May. We have just had an online meeting with EMUK co-president Caroline Lucas last month. Attendance for these has been more or less in line with expectations. Feedback from participants has been positive. Recordings of all those meetings are available online.
Europe Day in the Town Hall proved a memorable and moving occasion.
A high point for us was that the European Movement, of which we are an affiliate, opted to hold its annual meeting at the Examination Schools in Oxford. It proved to be very successful, with a productive AGM, several in-house speakers and two excellent guest speakers, Dominic Grieve KC and Prof Timothy Garton Ash.
On the European Movement national council there have been 3 Oxford-based members, Colin Gordon, Howard Aiken and myself. Colin and I will continue on the council for the next two years.
Worth mentioning also the European Movement’s campaigning work, and the fact that it now provides the secretariat for Westminster’s APPG on Europe.
We remain affiliated to Grassroots for Europe, and are pleased to see that they have set up a series of excellent online Round Table meetings with distinguished speakers. Colin Gordon, one of our members, continues as vice-chair.
There are various other national groups whose aims we share.
We are pleased to see our student colleagues showing signs of activity, with the Oxford Europeanist Society developing a momentum of its own. They are managing to attract speakers of some stature, and we are starting to work more closely with them.
The social media team has continued to work hard. We have a high Facebook profile: our Facebook community has 1800 members, and the Oxford for Europe page has 22,000 followers. Although we have ceased posting on Twitter/X in response to what Elon Musk has made of it, we now use BlueSky, and have done so with some success.
One of the low points this year was having our domain name taken hostage. This has meant that we are no longer on oxfordforeurope.org, but now on oxfordforeurope.com. It has also resulted in the need to migrate our BlueSky account from @oxfordforeurope.bsky.social to @oxford4europe.bsky.social. We hope that will be our new home, and early signs are good.
Looking ahead
This year has been quiet from the point of view of outdoor activities such as street stalls. Going forward I would like to think these can be resurrected come the Spring. We already have in our diary Europe Day on 9th May and the National Rejoin March in June (marking a full 10 years since the referendum). We anticipate that there will be much more to come.
Thanks
Special thanks are due to our admin group, in particular Cathie Wood, our treasurer, Susan Hartman, her predecessor, John Tanner, our hon sec, Geraldine Coggins for her excellent newsletter, Lizzie Price for making a success of BlueSky, Howard Aiken, Cathie and Susan for their valiant social media work, Colin Gordon for his written contributions, and Annette Shaw for her merchandising work.
As for myself, I am standing down after 7 years as chair, and with many happy memories of working with a great bunch of people. I expect that I will still be active within the group, and I am confident that I will be passing it on to very good hands.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and not necessarily representative of Oxford for Europe
If you wish to comment on this blog, please email oxfordforeurope@gmail.com
Please look at our previous meetings featuring brilliant speakers – Details and videos here.
See Also:
https://www.facebook.com/OfEcomms
https://www.facebook.com/oxfordstays
Twitter/X: @Oxfordstays (dormant presence)
BlueSky: @oxford4europe.bsky.social