A Reform government would “root out” teachers who are “brainwashing” children, MP Lee Anderson has told the party’s annual conference.
Speaking at a fringe event at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre on Friday night Anderson, MP for Ashfield and chief whip for Reform UK, said: “Whether you like it or not, there are some teachers in our schools [who] are brainwashing our kids into their way of thinking.
“And when we get into power, we will root these teachers out and hold them to account.”
Fellow panel member George Finch, 19-year-old Reform UK leader of Warwickshire County Council, described the nation’s education system as “broken” and dogged by a “wave of wokeism”.
“It’s a complete joke,” he said. “[At] sixth forms you’re meant to develop your learning from GCSEs. You don’t develop anything.
“The only thing you do develop is a woke mindset. [You’re] not allowed to question what’s going on…You’re just told to think a certain way.”
He spoke of a school local to his hometown of Bedworth, where he claimed “at age six to seven…you get taught to question why you are a boy, and what would you like to be if you were the other gender”.
Elsewhere at the conference Zia Yusuf, former chairman of Reform UK, spoke of the need to “stop schools from becoming indoctrination camps”.
“I know there’s legislation…that is very clear that, you know, teachers must be balanced and must not indoctrinate children,” said Yusuf, who was on Friday invited by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to become the party’s head of policy.
“But my inbox is full. My inbox is absolutely full…not just from all the parents, but from kids, but from kids in school who say that they’re being taught that Nigel Farage is this or that, or when they articulate their view that they like Nigel…they’re asked to stay behind in class…and they’re admonished by the teachers.”
He said Reform has “got to look very seriously at that” he said, adding that universities are “even more indoctrination camps”.
Their remarks came after Farage, giving his keynote speech at the conference earlier on Friday, began to lay out his party’s vision for education.
He said Reform refuses “to have our kid’s minds poisoned in schools and universities with a twisted interpretation of the history” of the UK, and called for “trades and services” to be taught in schools.
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