Nigel Farage Claims Teachers of ‘Poisoning Our Kids’ on Race Issues
Nigel Farage has asserted that teachers would go on strike within weeks a Reform UK election victory, charging that they are “harming young minds” by telling students that black pupils are victims and white children oppressors.
At a gathering for a private US Christian college, the politician expressed his viewpoint on the UK education system, stating that the “Marxist left” had “taken over schooling”.
“I expect a teachers’ strike soon after winning the next general election,” he remarked in response to questions.
“They are poisoning our kids. They are telling them to feel guilt about their nation. They inform little Johnny, who’s eight, who is black that he is a victim and a white child of the same age that he is a perpetrator. They create division, not uniting us. They promote this negative culture.”
Reacting to Farage’s claims, Daniel Kebede rejected the notion that the schools were under Marxist influence as “nonsense”. He pointed out that industrial action must relate to educators’ working conditions, and doubted whether the party would target these immediately upon entering government.
“The politician has crafted his public life on dog-whistle politics and currently, like Trump, he is targeting educators and their unions for a fight,” Kebede stated.
“This is highly reckless. I don’t – and nor does my union – advocate such divisive theories as he’s suggesting … Should he become prime minister he would undermine state services, particularly schooling … and he would be a disaster for education and children.”
The party, which is leading the polls by a significant margin, has not set out much detail on a proposed education policy and does not appear to have designated an education lead.
Nonetheless, his comments indicated the group would reform the educational framework. Farage declared: “We face an enormous task with education – truly monumental. Moreover, we can’t do it in six months or a year; it requires years, years to turn this around.”
Farage expressed that younger generations are receptive to critical thinking, but millennials were “absolutely hopeless”.
Honoring a conservative activist, Farage said: “My goal for schooling is to foster independent thought – to instruct people that there are two points of view and you make up your own mind as opposed to current practices where one is virtuous and one is evil. This is a huge undertaking in the UK and US.”
Reform has previously clashed with a major educators’ organization, after Kebede called the party “extremist and prejudiced” and dismissed Farage as “a cheap imitation”.
Farage has accused the union head with being “an avowed radical” … someone who is absolutely determined that our children should be poisoned at school, their thinking tainted about everything to do with this country” and has argued that the organization seeks to brainwash teenagers against Reform.
Roughly a million individuals work in schools in the UK, about half of whom are teachers and the remainder being assistants and administrative personnel. The major education union has hundreds of thousands of members.
Countrywide walkouts over teacher pay and conditions in recent years caused widespread disruption in schools and millions of days of lost learning for students.
At the US event, the Reform leader also pledged to help spread the online educational material of the Christian college in the UK. He said such groups were “part of the fightback”, adding that: “I mean this. I will help garner hundreds of thousands, if not millions of young people to these educational programs. I make that commitment now and I will follow through.”
The institution, a small private Christian college, offers free courses. Its website states: “A scientific, literary, theological, political, and moral education is necessary for personal happiness and to maintain the benefits of civil and religious liberty. It offers these excellent programs for no charge to every interested learner.”
