DEMONSTRATORS hit back today at criticism of their protest against Jacob Rees-Mogg’s speech at Cardiff University.

The protesters were opposing Mr Rees-Mogg speaking at the university’s Conservative Association on Friday evening.

Tory Party chairman Richard Holden and Labour’s shadow Welsh secretary Jo Stevens voiced concerns after social media posts showed Mr Rees-Mogg being chased to a waiting car, escorted by security guards.

The Welsh Underground Network (WUN), which claims it is fighting for a socialist republic of Wales, helped organise the protest with the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), formerly Socialist Appeal.

A WUN spokesperson said: “We have never bought into the idea that all protest should be quiet and polite, that politicians can sit in Parliament and make decisions that affect us and then never hear our anger in the streets.

“Rees-Mogg represents to us everything that we’re against, he’s against the people of Palestine and he’s against the working class. 

“We want to tell these politicians that they’re not welcome here.”

The group singled out Labour MP Ms Stevens for criticism saying she has had demonstrations outside her office due to her support for Israel in the Gaza conflict.

Alex Falconer, an RCP spokesman, said: “We expect criticism from the chairman of the Tory Party, who are complicit in these war crimes, but how disgusting is the criticism from the so-called Labour leadership, who run to defend Rees-Mogg and attack the protesters.

“Rees-Mogg has the BBC, GB News, where he is a regular, he has all the mainstream newspapers so the idea that his right to express his views is curtailed by the occasional protest is laughable.

“It is the right to free speech of ordinary working-class people that is constantly curtailed.”