Cambridge Economist Protests Brexit By Allowing Students To Sign Her Naked Body During Lecture

Victoria Bateman

“Brexit leaves Britain naked.”

That was the message scrawled on economics scholar Victoria Bateman’s completely nude body during a recent lecture she gave at which audience members were allowed to “create a living anti-Brexit petition by signing her bare body,” Inside Higher Ed reports.


Bateman, a fellow in economics at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, recently in a performance titled "Brexit: The Naked Truth," called for audience members to create a living anti-Brexit petition by signing her naked body.

 “]T]he relevant question is not ‘Why use your naked body?’ but ‘Why not use your naked body?,’ she said.

Let me add this to @eucopresident's words: Brexiteers have placed Britain on the #YellowBrickRoad. It's a long & arduous journey. And, when we get to the end, will all the time, energy & pain be worth it? Listen here https://t.co/2Z84HZo91P #BrexitLeavesBritainNaked #RemaininEU pic.twitter.com/rIiHBDYqOS

— Dr Victoria Bateman (@vnbateman) February 6, 2019

In 2016, Bateman attended a Cambridge University Faculty of Economics meeting naked as a protest against Brexit.

From a Freudian perspective, this might explain things: Bateman is descended from a long line of cotton mill workers from Manchester.

She has made a public call for a sexual revolution in economics and firmly believes that lowering inequality, reducing poverty and raising economic growth in the West requires the empowerment of women in poorer parts of the world, which seems a bit contradictory. I seem to recall from my grammar school days of "reading" National Geographic that there are more public displays of naked women in third world countries than anywhere else.

-RW