Nigel Farage clashes with teaching union over 'far right' claim
The Reform UK leader campaigns for tougher action against illegal immigration and a "one in one out" policy for legal migrants to ease pressure on housing and the NHS. He has always insisted he is not a racist and has rejected calls from some Reform UK members to side with far-right activist Tommy Robinson.The party has also stepped up vetting of candidates ahead of May's local elections in England after a series of racism scandals during last year's general election campaign.
A motion passed at the NEU's conference in Harrogate described Reform UK as a "racist and far-right party because of its policies around immigration and its campaigns against migrants".It accused the party of "scapegoating refugees, asylum seekers, Muslims, Jews and others who do not fit their beliefs".Members agreed that the union should "use the union's political fund to support campaigning against election candidates from Reform UK (whose anti-immigration policies and campaigns are racist in nature) or other racist organisations".Speaking with journalists afterwards, Mr Kebede said Farage was a "pound shop Donald Trump" who had "made a career out of dog whistle politics", but did not label him or his party "racist".Asked whether he therefore disagreed with the motion, he said: "I think there [are] an awful lot of racists who are getting involved in Reform."Pressed on whether that included Farage, he said: "I think Nigel Farage is a right-wing populist."Responding to the comments at a press conference in County Durham, Farage said Mr Kebede was a "self-declared Marxist" who was encouraging "indoctrination of teenagers in our schools".He said the union leader was "somebody who is absolutely determined that our children should be poisoned at school, their minds should be poisoned about everything to do with this country, it's history, what it stood for".He added: "I'll make one thing very, very clear: if we win the 2029 general election, we will go to war with the National Education Union and all left wing teachers' unions."People should be taught objectively, fairly and should be taught critical thinking where kids can make their own minds up what they believe and not be indoctrinated."Reform MP Lee Anderson said the NEU had "shown its true colours", adding: "Rather than focusing on educating Britain's youth, it seems more interested in political indoctrination, silencing free speech, and spreading divisive rhetoric."
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Nigel Farage is right. Every political party in Great Britain willing to nominate peers is represented in the House of Lords. The Green Party and Plaid Cymru have four MPs and two peers each. Reform too has four MPs. So it would be reasonable for Farage's party, given the representation of Plaid Cymru and the Green Party in the Commons, to be granted a couple of peerages when the next tranche of appointments are made. This is the case, more or less, that Farage recently made. It goes without saying that Sir Keir Starmer shows no sign of recognising Reform's claim: why would he help to build up the party he currently sees as Labour's foremost rival? He could argue correctly that there is no formal relationship, under the terms of our constitution, between the number of MPs and the number of peers that a party has in Parliament. And point out that there is a smattering of peers, of whom the most active is Baroness Fox, that were members either of the Brexit Party or of Ukip. But there is an injustice about Sir Keir's stonewalling – one might call it two-tier appointments – that many voters will intuitively grasp. And if it's unfair to exclude Reform altogether from the Lords now, how much more will it be if they win, say, 50 seats in the Commons after the next election? What would the position be – thinking on – were the party to win outright? Or to form a government with the support of other parties? I don't believe that such a result is likely. In a hung Parliament, Sir Keir has more potential partners to approach than Farage: the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Welsh nationalists, the Irish ones, the Left-wing independents. It may also be that the public mood changes, Kemi Badenoch seizes voters' imagination and that, in this age of fissile politics, my own party, the Conservatives, recover. But the prospect of a Reform government – either with a majority or perhaps supported by the Tories – is no longer so absurd as to be laughed off. How would such a government approach the Lords? At the last general election, Reform proposed to replace the Upper House with an elected chamber. But that was then, before the party's opinion poll and local election take-off, and tomorrow is another day. Farage will presumably want a Reform government to, for example, leave the ECHR, scrap the Climate Change Act, abolish the Equality Act, reform the civil service and sack activist judges. He may well conclude that a protracted constitutional struggle with the Upper House would be one confrontation too many, since it would hold up all his other plans. Furthermore, Farage, if hunkered down in No 10, would hold the power of patronage. And prime ministers, once they have it, are reluctant to give it up. So were Reform to form a government, either solely or with others, Farage would gain the peers he is demanding today – and more. How many could reasonably be appointed? A hundred? More? How swiftly could they be approved, given the role of the House of Lords Appointments Commission? Or might such a government simply abolish the commission outright? Even so, there would be a trade-off between the speedy introduction of new peers and efficient passage of the new government's business. Would scores of new Reform peers – conceivably hundreds – have the skills, know-how, and determination to legislate and govern competently? What would happen to the present balance of the chamber, in which no party has a majority? These are deep waters in which not just the Upper House but our constitution itself could flounder. Conservative peers would have a responsibility to help to navigate them. I have no confidence in Reform. The party is a one-man band. There is no sign of it making serious preparations for government – for the institutional intifada of resistance it would meet from elements of the state. Coalition with such a force would be in no-one's interest, neither the parties nor the voters'. Nonetheless, Tory peers, in such circumstances, can learn lessons from the past. (And what's conservatism all about, if not learning lessons from the past?) In 1924, the first Labour government had no peers in the Lords at all. So Liberal ones, for a mix of political reasons, helped the new government to pass its legislation. The Upper House has changed radically since the introduction of life peers – of which I'm one. In the event of Reform leading a government, Conservative peers would have a responsibility – whatever our own party's relationship with it in the Commons might be – to help the new government get legislation through the Lords in good order. All this may never happen. And these are early days. But not too early to think ahead.
