Cambridge University Students’ Union has said that having military personnel at freshers’ fair is “alarming” for attendees and could “detrimentally affect” their mental health.

Students voted to ban any societies from bringing firearms along to the fair after Stella Swain, the welfare and rights officer, argued that some people may find them “triggering”.

The motion said that the presence of firearms and military personnel at the fair shows “implicit approval of their use, despite the links between military and firearms and violence on an international scale”.

Ms Swain, who proposed the motion, pointed out that CUSU had previously committed to supporting efforts to “demilitarise” the university, and that freshers’ fair should not be a place for “military organisations to recruit”.

“The presence of firearms and military personnel at freshers’ fair is alarming and off-putting for some students, and has the potential to detrimentally affect students’ mental welfare,” the motion said.

Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan, labelled the motion as “pathetic, to say the very least”.

He told the Telegraph: “I would suggest this is nothing to do with the military as such. It is just yet another effort, as we have seen in so many of these student motions at various universities, to undermine British society.

“Without the Armed Forces these students wouldn’t be able to study, they are only able to because the country has been protected and defended by the British Army.

“Many students from Cambridge University fought and died in the Armed Forces and for our country. Students should have more respect for those who went before them, who made the ultimate sacrifice to allow them to study in freedom.”