Kemi Badenoch’s dire warning that Britain is ‘back under union control’ | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Kemi Badenoch has warned that Britain is “again underneath union management”.

The Tory leader suggested that “what we have is Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party fronted by Keir Starmer”.

She hit out at the Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which would introduce a raft of changes to the education sector.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Mrs Badenoch said: “This is not good for schools, and what it is showing is that Labour are just doing what the unions want them to do.

“The nation is again underneath union management, and that’s what we’re preventing towards.”

Changes within the Bill embody a clampdown on homeschooling and drastic modifications for academies.

Mrs Badenoch mentioned that whereas she supported the safeguarding components of the Bill, the proposed modifications to academies would “smash up the good things” achieved in England’s training system over the previous 20 years.

The Tory chief mentioned of Labour: “Their way of making everything equal is dragging everyone down rather than bringing others up. Our way of making things equal is bringing people up. They want to destroy the schools that are doing well.

“I really worry that people think that they have something like the New Labour government that’s just a bit moderate and just doing things a little bit on the Left.

“What we have is Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party fronted by Keir Starmer. This is all the Corbynite stuff, but Keir Starmer is fronting it … This is Jeremy Corbyn’s dream.”

It comes as the biggest training union within the nation will ask its members to vote on the Government’s advice of a 2.8% pay rise for lecturers.

The National Education Union (NEU) will launch an indicative poll of its members from March 1 till April 11 over the pay supply for lecturers in England.

Members can be requested whether or not they could be keen to take industrial motion if the Government doesn’t decide to a big and absolutely funded pay rise.

Delegates on the NEU’s annual convention in mid-April might then determine to proceed to a proper poll in the summertime time period if members again motion.

Daniel Kebede, the NEU’s basic secretary, mentioned the present proposal of two.8% for 2025-26 is “not sufficient” to handle trainer shortages.

The Government denied it was underneath the affect of unions, with a spokesman saying Mrs Badenoch’s claims had been “ludicrous”.

A Department for Education spokesman referred to as the NEU’s announcement “an extraordinary decision”.

He mentioned: “The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will drive high and rising school standards, make our children safer and save families money.

“Academies do fantastic work and, far from getting rid of them, we want to share that best practice and make sure that all schools can benefit from the flexibilities they have.”