Sheila Caffrey and Michaela Wilde, NEU Executive Committee members for the Southwest, personal capacity
National Education Union (NEU) members, parents, students and the local community were not pleased that Damien Egan MP was invited to speak at Bristol Brunel Academy in September. Worries over his voting record, public comments to constituents, and his support for the genocide in Gaza were all raised as reasons why it was not appropriate for him to visit.
This would be a place where he could put forward his views unchallenged, and students and staff would not be allowed to question or respond to his policies, affiliations or political support.
The visit was cancelled by the school due to this pressure, citing safeguarding as their reasons.
Damien Egan was quiet at the time, but months later has decided to release an attack on the union branch, and several national media stories have been run, attacking individuals and the branch. It was even raised at Prime Minister’s Question Time, leading to Keir Starmer saying that there would be an investigation into the school and that people ‘would be held to account’. Ofsted arrived in the school with only a couple of hours’ notice the next day.
At a time when it is claimed that there is no money to fund resources and the staff that are desperately needed to support and teach children and young people, there is apparently money to fund ten Ofsted inspectors to be photographed walking into the school to show the vigorous nature of Starmer’s holding education workers to account.
Less than an hour later, half of them left quietly (with no media photos) as they weren’t needed. These will have been paid for a day’s work, taking money from frontline services – simply for Starmer’s photo shoot.
Education workers have always raised criticisms of Ofsted and its political nature has been clear in the past when used to push schools to become academies or to remove school leadership teams that aren’t liked.
However, this is the first time that a prime minister has clearly used it to punish workers and to try and enforce political rhetoric. This will lead to individuals chosen to ‘carry the can’ and potentially be disciplined or fired, pressurising workers to ‘put up and shut up’, rather than organising around legitimate concerns.
All workers should have the right to whistleblow and raise issues in their workplace, without being open to public and political attacks. Preventing this right, and using Ofsted and the media as political attack dogs to punish workers, is an issue that the whole trade union and workers’ movement should publicly expose and mobilise against.
Bristol National Education Union members have been attacked by Keir Starmer and national right-wing media for correctly opposing a platform being given to Damien Egan MP, vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, without the opportunity for challenge or debate – outrageously misframing the union’s actions as antisemitic. The right of trade unionists and communities to protest must be defended.
This doesn’t mean that the Socialist Party generally supports ‘no platforming’. We support the democratic right of all trends to put their views, apart from for those who are trying to build a base for fascism, which aims to destroy all democratic rights. The best way to counter views such as those that defend the genocidal onslaught on Palestinians is by debate, in order to expose and answer them, and put forward an alternative. As the NEU members in Bristol point out, the students and staff would have had no opportunity to challenge or question Egan.
