BRITAIN’S largest education union today expressed its “unequivocal solidarity” for Diane Abbott and condemned racist and misogynistic attacks on the country’s first black female MP.
National Education Union (NEU) delegates slammed the Tories’ biggest donor Frank Hester for saying that she made him hate black women and suggesting she should be shot at its annual conference.
They noted the Labour Party’s internal Forde report identified “overt and underlying sexism” against the former shadow home secretary and other black MPs.
Speaking before the motion was passed, NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said Mr Hester is not “good enough to lace Diane Abbott’s boots.”
He paid tribute to her long track record of standing up for British working people.
“This public-facing role has meant that Diane has been the target of both racist and misogynistic abuse from the public as well as the media for her entire political career; for this abusive language to come from a high-profile Conservative Party donor is a disgrace and must be challenged,” he said.
The motion also moved to campaign for the abolition of government’s counter-terrorism strategy Prevent.
Mr Kebede said that it discriminates against Muslim students and staff and that in schools, “safeguarding policies are the better way to respond where young people under the aged of 18 are exposed to extremist ideas.”
The motion also committed the NEU to produce anti-racism curriculum materials addressing Islamophobia and anti-semitism.
North Yorkshire delegate Gary McVeigh-Kane said: “The casual, hateful, racist and misogynistic language used by Frank Hester against Diane Abbott has no place in our contemporary society.”
He then listed abusive and violent comments that fed into the Forde report and said: “To this day those [Labour] staffers who made those comments have not been properly investigated or disciplined by the Labour Party but Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn still sit with the whip removed, that’s shameful.”
Ms Abbott told the Morning Star: “I am very moved that Britain’s largest education union has offered unequivocal solidarity.
“NEU has done so much for education. I will always be proud to stand alongside them.”
Camden delegate Megan Quinn said the NEU’s definition of anti-semitism — as opposed to the “confusing and damaging” IHRA definition — “must be a central part of anti-racism work in schools.”
At a Stand Up to Racism fringe meeting, NEU president Emma Rose slammed double standards for Ukrainian refugees and those who were “marched down a runway to [the Bibby Stockholm] barge that is contaminated with legionella.”
