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A 17-year-old British conservative activist known as “Young Bob” online says he has received death threats and has been violently attacked while championing Turning Point UK’s message.
Thomas Moffitt’s latest ordeal erupted on Nov. 20 at the London School of Economics (LSE) after he was invited by the university’s Conservative Society to discuss the need for socially conservative values in Britain.
“We were invited on to speak about socially conservative values. Within about an hour, people were taking pictures with us, some people were genuinely debating in good faith,” Moffitt told Fox News Digital.
“Then afterwards, outside of that hour frame that we had some decent discussions, we had a bunch of masked-up activists, firstly, trying to steal our materials, and then secondly, trying to protest with a megaphone.”
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He said angry demonstrators also mocked the death of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and a central figure in conservative youth politics, while trying to remove the group from campus.
“In their eyes, it must have just been seen as them trying to commit some sort of humiliation ritual,” Moffitt added. “We’re trying to continue Charlie’s fight here in the U.K.”
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He called the protesters’ chants “a very demoralized way of essentially mocking the death of a great man.”
Kirk, who founded TPUSA in 2012 to mobilize young conservatives, was shot and killed earlier this year while addressing an audience on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Over time, Kirk’s outreach has inspired international chapters, including Turning Point UK and Turning Point Australia.
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Kirk previously spoke in Britain at events such as the Oxford Union, encouraging conservative student activism abroad.
Moffitt, who has been part of Turning Point UK for two years, said that violence and intimidation have followed the chapter’s activism from the start.
“Throughout the duration of reporting for TPUK and doing stands on abortion, transgenderism and migration, we’ve had bottles of urine chucked at us, glue chucked at us, cans of beans chucked in my face,” he said.
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“On several occasions in Speaker’s Corner, which is sort of this free marketplace of ideas where you discuss about religion and politics, a man had a knife, threatened to kill me… I’ve had physical assaults, I’ve had people kick in my head, I’ve had people on social media threaten to kill me.”
Despite the hostility, Moffitt remains determined to expand Kirk’s movement.
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“We saw that, really, we can start to import what the U.S. was very successful in terms of preaching and evangelizing young people into conservatism,” he said.
“I think that we should take this momentum and opportunity and kind of grow out TPUK,” he continued, saying Kirk “would have loved to see the format that he made popular in the U.K.”
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“We must continue the fight regardless of what country we’re in, because the West needs conservatism,” he added.
“If I were… ever able to have the opportunity to speak to Erika [Kirk], I would firstly give huge admiration towards her husband on the formula and ideas that I [drew] great inspiration from,” Moffitt said.
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