Why Imran Khan Should Be the Next Chancellor of Oxford University

In an exclusive op-ed for Zeteo, the British Conservative Lord, Daniel Hannan, says choosing Khan will cement Oxford’s status as the global university.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Lahore, Pakistan, on March 17, 2023. Photo by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

It says nothing good about Pakistan’s politics that Imran Khan can more easily contest an election in the United Kingdom than in his home country, where he is in solitary confinement on trumped-up charges.

The former prime minister, who was removed from office in 2022 in a civilian (albeit military-orchestrated) putsch, has applied from his prison cell to be chancellor of Oxford University, arguably the most prestigious position in the academic world.

Several prime ministers have done that job, but they have until now all been British. They have included the Duke of Portland, the Marquess of Salisbury and Harold Macmillan, as well as Lord North, famous for losing the American colonies. Even Oliver Cromwell – Britain’s sole military dictator – held the post during his autocracy.

Khan, who studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford’s Keble College in the early 1970s – as well, naturally, as playing cricket for the university – would be the first chancellor from another country, the first Muslim, and the first not to be white. Then again, Oxford itself has become a global institution. While there were a number of overseas undergraduates in Khan’s time, especially from Commonwealth countries, they were very much the minority. Not these days.

The election is open to all Oxford graduates and staff, around 250,000 people in total. For the first time, voting will be online, making it a truly worldwide contest. The candidates will be formally announced in early October, and the poll will take place in mid-November. 

If Khan’s name is allowed to go forward, I shall be voting for him. Not as a way of putting pressure on Pakistan to release him – though I hope his victory would also have that effect – but because I believe he would make a first-rate chancellor.

Let me deal briefly with the situation that has left him as a political prisoner.