For the next five weeks, Kevin Yuill will combine university teaching with an unlikely task for an academic: campaigning to become a Brexit Party MP.
Dr Yuill, assistant professor of American history at the University of Sunderland, is standing for Nigel Farage’s pro-Leave party in the traditional Labour stronghold of Houghton and Sunderland South – a constituency in England’s north-east that is often the first to declare its result on election night.
“It’s often said that if you had a breeze block and pinned a red rosette on it [to run as a parliamentary candidate], Labour would still win here,” Dr Yuill said of the huge support that Labour has historically enjoyed in the former mining and shipbuilding area.
With 62 per cent of voters backing Leave in the 2016 referendum, however, Dr Yuill believes the 15 per cent swing that he needs to upset the sitting Labour MP, Bridget Phillipson, is possible at next month’s general election. “There is amazing anger against her because she has campaigned strongly for a second referendum,” Dr Yuill told Times Higher Education, adding that Labour leader “Jeremy Corbyn is also not very popular in the north-east, either”.
As an outspoken Brexit backer, Dr Yuill – a Canadian-born academic who has lived in the UK for 36 years, and on Wearside for 20 years – admits that he is something of a rarity in academia, observing that “most of my colleagues voted Remain”.
However, there are, he added, “quite a few secret Brexiteers among my colleagues” who have expressed support for his position by email.
Among students at Sunderland, support for Brexit is much higher, with some students even joining his campaign team, he said. “I’d say students here are split 50-50 on Brexit – maybe 60-40 in favour of Remain – but lots of students have been emailing me to say they are behind me and want to help.”
That split is, however, probably explained by Sunderland’s strong local student intake, he conceded. “It is not typical of most universities, where the clear majority of students are in favour of Remain,” he said.
Dr Yuill’s decision to stand for the Brexit Party might run against mainstream opinion in academia, but his objections to European Union membership are broadly similar to those once espoused by Tony Benn and, until recently, Mr Corbyn – figures admired by many left-wing academic voters – namely that the EU’s leaders lack democratic accountability.
“I’ve never voted Conservative and usually voted Labour, although I voted Green once,” Dr Yuill said.
However, his willingness to take controversial positions – he has previously argued in favour of trophy hunting and relaxing gun laws in the UK – might relate, he suggested, to the fact he is “not a typical academic”.
“I worked in a factory after I left school and didn’t go to university until I was 27,” he explained.
Despite the Brexit Party’s lack of support among academia, Dr Yuill says his own institution has been supportive of his decision to stand for Parliament. “They do not support my position [on Brexit] necessarily, but have said they will make allowances to let me do this.”
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