Birmingham schools: Gove must resign

Felicity Dowling, a Left Unity principal speaker and teacher, said:

“As the Tories squabble among themselves, what is being forgotten is that this whole row was based on a letter widely believed to be a hoax.

“These schools, teachers and children are being demonised with not a shred of evidence.

“Ofsted has placed the schools in special measures because of political pressure. How can schools be outstanding one minute and failing the next? It is Ofsted that is failing, not the schools.

Michael Gove has presided over all of this. He must resign now. Schools should be under democratic local control, not be Gove’s plaything.

“Left Unity will be part of the Hands Off Birmingham Schools campaign led by Salma Yaqoob to defend the Birmingham schools and stand up to the racism behind this attack.”

For more information contact press@leftunity.org

Notes for editors

1. Left Unity is the new party of the left in Britain. Founded in November 2013, it already has over 2,000 members and 50 branches across the country.


6 comments

6 responses to “Birmingham schools: Gove must resign”

  1. Ian McNee says:

    This is a good start but we need to be more forthright on this. Labour is not united behind Tristram Hunt and Khalid Mahmood in joining the Islamophobic attack on Birmingham schools. Bob Jones the West Midlands PCC has issued a statement attacking Gove (http://westmidlands-pcc.gov.uk/your-commissioner/blogs/posts/2014/seeking-truth-or-deflecting-blame) and John Prescott is calling for Gove to back off (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/john-prescott-michael-gove-real-3660136).

    We must have a positive orientation to anyone in the Labour Party who breaks with Hunt/Mahmood and will join those defending these schools against Gove & Ofsted.

    A good starting point for LU comrades is Gus John’s excellent analysis of what is going on: http://www.gusjohn.com/2014/06/trojan-horses-and-policing-extremism-in-schools/ – this demolishes the lies and smears being perpetrated by the government and a large section of the media.

    • John Brockley says:

      At last a voice on the left that realises that the parents know what is going on. Hunt is stuck behind his desk. I am proud to be a teacher at Park View and proud to belong to the Labour Party (usually)
      God knows what game Mahmood is playing.

  2. Richard Finnigan says:

    A massive knee jerk reaction from Left Unity. Socialists should be utterly opposed to organised religion getting involved in education and why have religions of all faiths been so keen to get involved in the ConDems academies program?

    • Ian McNee says:

      You miss the point Richard: Gove is playing the race card here to divert attention from the failings of his “privatisation by stealth” education policy, probably to boost his standing in a post-Cameron Tory party after the next election. To do this he has unleashed a vicious campaign of smears and lies against good schools that are serving well their overwhelmingly working class and Muslim students & local community.

      What is not posed is wether or not education should be secular: if Gove succeeds in his racist Islamophobic attack on Birmingham schools (while being given left-cover by sectarians bleating over “secular education”) do you think that will lead to religion disappearing in schools with other dominant faith groups or in nice white middle class ghetto schools? Clearly it will not.

  3. Bev says:

    Islam has now been demonised to the extent that, for some people it now equates automatically to terrorism, this in my view is the knee jerk reaction. The Tories are using the Birmingham situation to further their attacks on Muslims and this will have a knock on effect on other minority groups, as part of the rightward shift in attitudes to immigrants in the UK. OFSTED is being used in a totally unscientific and biased way, as an ideological weapon to attack the rights of a section of our community, Muslim children and their families.The work of the teachers in bringing some of these schools to Outstanding, only two years ago, is also under attack.The investigation found no evidence of any ‘extremism’ within any of the schools. As per usual, OFSTED was used to find fault for political reasons,yet another example of how it has been used to further the aims of disciplining schools to fit into the neo-liberal privatisation plans for education, alongside other parts of the welfare state. Yes I am a teacher, in a school very similar to those attacked in Birmingham. I feel worried and concerned for my school community in relation to the impliactions of this will be for us. Left Unity must stand by any campaign against Gove; it is part of defending our children and our community.

  4. John Tummon says:

    Not only has Islam been demonised in this school dispute, but the recently reported events in Iraq about the march of ISIS are now being equated by the media with JIhadism and terrorism.

    I only have an emerging analysis of this yet, but the forces behind the forces on the ground involves the USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, the Kurds and Syri, which each have each have a big stake in all this.

    The political map of the Middle East is in flux once again because it has only ever been held down by force – first by the Ottomans, then by Britain and France (who created the modern map), then by the USA, the House of Sa’ud, the Iranian Shi’ite state, Assad & Saddam’s Ba’athists.

    Then, a combination of the Arab Spring + the Iraq War and its aftermath has re-opened possibilites for a fundamental reconfiguration of the region. The US has since it’s military victory in Iraq been trying to rule the northern Middle East through Shi’as, (but this is falling apart in both Syria and Iraq) and the Southern Middle East via Wahhabis, so the Sunnis in the Middle East no longer have any external friends east of the Magrhib and, since the fall of Saddam, feel as stateless as the Kurds.

    This is, on one level, their attempt to build a Sunni state, which is why so many Sunnis have latched onto this Jihadi group and given it a resonance only paralleled by the Taliban. The Jihadis in ISIS appear to be in the process of softening their zealotry in orer to accommodate this wider, communal, support, but the Western governments, driven by their ‘War on Terror’ mantra, are ideologically constrained to see it only in terms of the agenda of the Bush i and Bush II era. Our media are going along with this.

    But, so long as they don’t have a state, Sunnis will look to establish one. In short, on that level, this is perhaps as much about Sunni self-determination as it is about Jihadism and this may become clearer as the stuggle develops.

    If this proves to be the case, then if the Left supports the Kurds on this basis, should it not support the Sunnis, too?

    One thing is certain, we cannot cleanly compartmentalise the attacks on and demonisation of British Muslims from the West’s apparent determination to crush ISIS on the grounds of fighting terrorism, because the same justification is being used in both cases and British Muslims, who are mostly Sunni, can see the link only too clearly. If the West ends up in bed with Shi’a Iran, and, by implication, with Hezbollah, then British Muslims will feel doubly disenfranchised.

    Where do we want to stand on this? We can’t intervene among Birmingham Muslims over schooling issues without being asked about Midddle Eastern developments, so we need to find our position urgently!


Left Unity is active in movements and campaigns across the left, working to create an alternative to the main political parties.

About Left Unity   Read our manifesto

Left Unity is a member of the European Left Party.

Read the European Left Manifesto  

ACTIVIST CALENDAR

Events and protests from around the movement, and local Left Unity meetings.

ongoing
Just Stop Oil – Slow Marches

Slow marches are still legal (so LOW RISK of arrest), and are extremely effective. The plan is to keep up the pressure on this ecocidal government to stop all new fossil fuel licences.

Sign up to slow march

Saturday 9th March: national march for Palestine

National demonstration.

Ceasefire NOW! Stop the Genocide in Gaza: Assemble 12 noon Hyde Park Corner to the US Embassy

Full details

More events »

GET UPDATES

Sign up to the Left Unity email newsletter.

CAMPAIGNING MATERIALS

Get the latest Left Unity resources.

Leaflet: Support the Strikes! Defy the anti-union laws!

Leaflet: Migration Truth Kit

Broadsheet: Make The Rich Pay

More resources »