Stand Up to Racism research reveals the antisemitic writings of a former Reform UK candidate leading the society hosting Nathan Cofnas, alongside connections to the European far right. Anti-racists will demonstrate outside Oriel College on 17 November.
The Oxford Reform society organising a controversial appearance by racial “hereditarian” Nathan Cofnas is led by a former Reform UK election candidate who published antisemitic conspiracy theories and defended denying equal religious rights to Jewish people.
Research by Stand Up to Racism has uncovered the writings of Vittorio Peter Cuneo-Flood, president of the Oxon Universities’ Reform Society, as well as further connections between the society and international fascists.
Cuneo-Flood’s writings include claims that Jews and Freemasons are “promoting Satan’s plan”.
These revelations come as opposition grows to Cofnas’s scheduled appearance at Oriel College on Tuesday 17 November.
The event, entitled Is DEI Undermining Higher Education?, will give a platform to a man who has openly advocated racial hereditarianism and argued that Black people would virtually disappear from prestigious positions under what he considers a meritocratic system.
More than 29,000 people have signed a petition opposing the event, while MPs, trade union leaders, academics, musicians and anti-racist campaigners have backed demands for its cancellation.
Reform candidate promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories
Vittorio Peter Cuneo-Flood, a fourth-year Classics undergraduate and president of Oxford Reform, stood as Reform UK’s candidate in Carfax and Jericho in the May 2026 Oxford City Council elections.
Almost two years earlier, in autumn 2024, he published an article in the extreme traditionalist Catholic magazine The Recusant, enthusiastically endorsing the work of Denis Fahey, an Irish priest notorious for his antisemitic political theology.
The article, Fr Fahey’s The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism, describes Fahey’s book as essential reading and praises its account of the modern world.
In his introduction, Cuneo-Flood identifies “the Freemasons and the Jewish Nation” as organised forces advancing Satan’s plans.
The article goes on to argue that the Catholic Church should enjoy supremacy over the state and that other religions have no inherent right to equal treatment.
Most extraordinarily, it explicitly defends “a denial of equal rights between Catholicism and Judaism”, dismissing objections to this position as resulting from “the false notion of ‘Anti-Semitism’”.
The Recusant belongs to the SSPX Resistance milieu, a breakaway traditionalist Catholic movement associated with opposition to modernising reforms of the Catholic Church. Prominent figures within the broader movement have included Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson.
Another issue of The Recusant, published in early 2024, contains a manifesto from the Legio Filiorum Sancti Philippi Neri (LFSPN), a militant Catholic integralist organisation calling for the restoration of Christendom.
The manifesto invokes antisemitic conspiracy language, calls for the creation of disciplined political cadres and anticipates a future in which politicians emerge from the organisation’s ranks.
Cuneo-Flood’s explicitly bylined article appeared in 2024, well before Reform UK selected him as an election candidate.
What did Reform UK know about these writings? And what checks were made before he was selected to stand for the party?
Nathan Cofnas and the rehabilitation of racial hierarchy
The society led by Cuneo-Flood is now organising an appearance by Nathan Cofnas, a self-described “race realist” who has argued that hereditary differences explain supposed racial inequalities in intelligence.
In his February 2024 essay A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution, Cofnas argued that a genuine meritocracy would result in Black professors being driven out of academia. He went further, predicting the near-disappearance of Black people from prominent positions outside sport and entertainment.
His essay advocates a broader political and cultural transformation in which acceptance of racial hereditarianism becomes central to the outlook of political and intellectual elites.
In a recorded discussion, he stated that following a revolution he would head a Harvard department devoted to eugenics and race science.
The invitation to Cofnas is particularly disturbing in the aftermath of the death of Professor Jason Arday, Cambridge University’s first Black professor of sociology. Cofnas played a prominent role in the controversy surrounding Arday, publicly accusing him of plagiarism and asking whether Cambridge believed “the only way to have Black professors is to abandon all standards”.
Arday died in August following an intense period of hostile public scrutiny, which Cambridge’s chancellor, Lord Smith, described as a “racist feeding frenzy”. On 17 August, Stand Up to Racism organised a huge vigil in Trafalgar Square, drawing an estimated 30,000 people in an extraordinary expression of grief, solidarity and anger at his treatment.
Arday’s family have spoken of the unbearable public cruelty he had endured.
Figures such as Cofnas are fighting for the rehabilitation of theories of inherited racial hierarchy and their application to political institutions.
Oxford and Oriel College have hidden behind claims they are upholding freedom of speech, but the decision to provide facilities for this event has prompted substantial opposition.
An extraordinary meeting of Oxford’s Conference of Common Rooms is scheduled for 11 November, with proposals including an independent review of the event’s approval process.
Mass deportations, Restore Britain and European identitarianism
Oxford Reform’s own Michaelmas programme reveals the wider political orientation of the society.
In his president’s introduction, Cuneo-Flood warns that the British population is set to become a minority, language closely resembling the demographic replacement narratives promoted by fascists.
The society explicitly welcomes members of Restore Britain, Traditional Unionist Voice and the Democratic Unionist Party, while excluding paid-up members of several mainstream political parties.
Its programme also advertises a 2 December discussion on legal migration, which would consider proposals for the mass deportation of people who are legally settled in Britain.
One advertised speaker is Lucy White, a prominent Restore Britain activist who has emerged as a British representative of the Save Europe Act, an international campaign established by Austrian identitarian Martin Sellner and Dutch right-wing commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek.
Sellner is a central figure in Europe’s identitarian movement. He presented proposals for remigration at a November 2023 meeting near Potsdam attended by AfD figures, which was later exposed by the investigative organisation CORRECTIV.
Sellner’s international connections have previously attracted scrutiny following the Christchurch terrorist attacks in New Zealand. Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers in March 2019, had donated €1,500 to Sellner and exchanged emails with him in 2018. The inquiry did not establish that Sellner knew about the planned attacks.
Online forums associated with the Save Europe Act contain antisemitic conspiracy theories and anti-Muslim material.
Restore’s Lucy White (left) poses with Austrian fascist Martin Sellner
Another connection leads to Germany’s AfD
The Oxford Reform society also has a documented personnel connection to Germany’s fascist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
Olivia Knight-Catalinete, identified in The Oxford Student as Oxford Reform’s treasurer in January 2026, is listed as an accredited parliamentary assistant to AfD MEP Petr Bystron, beginning in October 2026.
Bystron has publicly supported Germany’s fascist Identitarian movement. In 2017, he argued that the AfD should act as a parliamentary protective shield for identitarian activists, despite the party’s official position distancing itself from the movement.
Knight-Catalinete told Stand Up to Racism that she had resigned as Oxford Reform treasurer around April or May 2026 and had no involvement in its subsequent activities. She denied sharing Bystron’s politics and described her parliamentary responsibilities as purely administrative.
Oxford Reform also previously advertised an appearance by Neema Parvini, known online as Academic Agent, whose racist statements about Black people have been documented by HOPE not hate. Parvini subsequently withdrew.
Opposition is growing at Oxford
The decision to invite Cofnas has already prompted widespread opposition.
A petition initiated by Oxford Students’ Coalition Against Racism, supported by Stand Up to Racism and other anti-racist organisations, has nearly 30,000 signatories.
Public opposition includes MPs Diane Abbott, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Zarah Sultana, alongside trade union leaders Jo Grady, Daniel Kebede and Andrea Egan, and prominent writers and cultural figures.
Reform UK must explain its previous selection of Cuneo-Flood as a candidate and whether it was aware of his published writings.
Oxford and Oriel College must address the questions raised by students and staff about the Cofnas event, including its approval process and the protection of students and staff from discrimination and harassment.
Demonstrate against the Cofnas event — 17 November
Stand Up to Racism is calling for the cancellation of Nathan Cofnas’s appearance and supporting the mobilisation outside Oriel College on 17 November.
STOP NATHAN COFNAS — NO TO RACISM AND EUGENICS
Tuesday 17 November, 5pm
Oriel Square, Oxford, OX1 4EW