Nigel Farage has said his Reform UK party will “go to war” against teachers’ unions after the country’s largest education union branded it “far-Right and racist”. The National Education Union has said it wants pupils to be taught the dangers of voting for the party.
Teachers are set to debate a motion at the NEU annual conference next month accusing “far-Right and racist organisations, including Reform”of scapegoating refugees, asylum seekers, Muslims and Jews. The motion claims four million votes were secured by Reform at the 2024 election on an “anti-immigrant platform”.
According to the Mail on Sunday it calls for teachers to “educate and challenge” pupils who are drawn to “racist beliefs and far-Right activity” and for anti-racist resources to be developed for use in schools.
Mr Farage has always rejected suggestionsReform UK is “far-Right”.
Last year, the BBC was forced to apologise for calling it far-Right in a news report.
Reform’s popularity among the young has soared with a recent poll showing that 30% of 16- and 17- year-olds would vote for the party if the voting age was lowered.
Mr Farage fired a warning shout to teachers unions: “This is happening up and down the country.
“Reform is subject to endless propaganda at the hands of teachers. When we are in a position to do so, we will go to war against the teachers’ unions.”
In the motion, to be debated at the Harrogate event, union activists also criticise the Government for seeking advice from “members of racist governments, such as Georgia Meloni” of Italy.
The NEU’s leader Daniel Kebede has called the UK “a brutally racist state” and dubbed the education system “institutionally racist”.
He has also called the national curriculum “a Little England, white saviour narrative”.
Teachers at the NEU conference will also attack academies and call for all schools to be returned to local authority control.
Labour is accused of bowing to union pressure in its controversial Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which had its third reading last week, and its new curriculum review.
The proposed reforms, described as a ‘wrecking ball’ by opposition MPs, will curtail academy freedoms.
Fears have also been raised that education union “wokeness” is influencing the Government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review, which published its interim report last week.
Last year, the NEU caused outrage by debating a motion calling Israel the “main driver” of violence in Gaza.
A spokesman for the NEU said: “It is vital we take on racist behaviour and language, in schools and in wider society. The NEU makes no apologies for holding that view.”