Reform fury as ‘marxist’ union baron pledges teachers will fight Reform’s rise | Politics | News
Reform UK has condemned the “marxist” chairman of the National Education Union, who has vowed to put schools at the forefront of the fight against the party’s rise. Daniel Kebede, who will be elected to the top job in 2023, made the new pledge, saying schools had already “become a bit of a battleground for Reform.”
He told The House magazine: “I would really like to see all education workers in a union to ensure that we can mount an appropriate defense if necessary.” This comes after Reform’s head of policy, Zia Yusuf, told the party’s conference last September that schools had become “brainwashing camps” led by far-left teachers. Lee Anderson added that the Reform government would “root out” teachers who “brainwash” children.
Mr Kebede said he now had “real concerns about the Reform government, AI, Farage’s links to Elon Musk (essentially the Trumpers)”.
He also criticized Labor for their new attempts to curb mass immigration, warning that this “merely encourages Reformation rather than actually defeating them and their ideas”.
“Year after year we see an increase in racism and racist incidents on the field,” he added.
Responding to the latest attack from the far-left union baron, a Reform UK spokesman said: “Mr Kebede is a self-proclaimed Marxist with a history of supporting far-left causes.
“A Reform UK government will go to war with the National Education Union and other left-wing education unions.”
Just a few weeks ago Reform UK had a furious meltdown with the NEU after it was revealed that teachers had equated their own party with the Nazis in political education materials.
In November, it was revealed that staff at the Orion academy group in south London had used images of Richard Tice’s face to illustrate “extremist” ideology.
Earlier this month, Mr Yusuf accused far-left teachers of imposing their political biases on children, as new statistics showed that 82% of educators at NEU supported left-wing parties.
Mr Yusuf told GB News: “What we need to do is make it clear that this way of brainwashing cannot happen.
“And then you can debate how to define that. I think having a sign that says ‘far right’ and having Nigel side with Adolf Hitler, I think most reasonable people would agree that’s brainwashing.”
“We do not expect teachers not to have political views. We are talking about brainwashing.”
In an interview with The House magazine, Mr Kebede explained that a survey of NEU members showed that teachers were becoming more left-wing.
While support for Labor among staff has fallen by 70% since the general election, the majority now support the Green Party.
