The Socialist 24 October 2018

“May hanging by a thread” - Tories out, general election now

'People's vote' should be a general election

Support RMT strikes against the elimination of guards on trains

Glasgow council workers - historic strike for equal pay

3aaa collapses - 4,500 apprentices left guessing their futures

PCS legal win - build further pressure from below to defeat the Tories

Ladywood Primary school strike

Universal Credit could trap women in violent relationships

Blairites plan to expand their very own academy chain

Tories ensured Carillion meltdown went unchecked

MPs revel in £2m worth of free foreign trips

Them & Us

Welsh Labour leadership election: 'Corbyn candidate' must pledge end to austerity

Join the fight for refugee rights

Can you donate to the Socialism 2018 appeal?

Enthusiastic response to new podcast

Students and workers march for increased college funding

Joining the Socialist Party has helped me understand the world and how we can change it

Health services in meltdown - fight to save our NHS

Newcastle Utd fans' campaign against owner Mike Ashley continues

Germany: Bavarian elections and huge anti-racist demonstration mark an historic weekend

1821 Cinderloo uprising: "The crowd thought it had nothing else to lose"

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Blairites plan to expand their very own academy chain

School students and teachers protest against academies at Tile Hill Wood school in Coventry, photo Coventry Socialist Party (Click to enlarge)

Josh Asker, Southampton Socialist Party

You would think that Labour politicians would be in favour of running schools that meet children's needs, unpolluted by the pursuit of profit and accountable to the communities that uses them. Well, these values are not held by Blairites who are at odds with Corbyn's plans to scrap the semi-privatised academy schools system.

The Cooperative group, which sponsors 37 Labour MPs, has plans to become one of the nation's biggest academy providers. One academy chain, Wakefield City Academies Trust, was accused last year of abandoning schools it managed and taking assets with them.

Parent revolt

The Tories dropped plans that would see every school in England converted into an academy after it faced a revolt from parents and backbench MPs.

The schools system is in the midst of a funding crisis, unable to balance budgets at the same time as employing enough staff to meet the needs of their pupils.

One way that the government is attempting to force the academisation process is with financial incentives of up to 10% of a school's budget.

When the carrot doesn't work then they use the stick! When underfunded schools are deemed to be underperforming then they are threatened with forced academisation, most of the time without any consultation, let alone a proper democratic say for parents, pupils or staff.

Academies mean communities lose their ability to hold schools to account through school governors or the local authority. Academisation must be reversed. The Socialist Party backs workers' and parents' action against school privatisation.

Plans from Labour's shadow education secretary Angela Rayner to stop academisation are welcome. But a future Corbyn government will find it a hard policy to implement if the pro-academy Blairites carry on sabotaging Corbyn.

That's why the Socialist Party calls for mandatory reselection. Where MPs fail to uphold the views of Labour's anti-austerity membership then they should be replaced with ones that do.

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'People's vote' should be a general election