Schools must fight to defend freedom of expression

Editor's note: Much has been writteen about the Batley Grammar School teachers who have been victimized for allegedly showing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad, from a copy of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Below is one account from The Critic website by Ella Whelan which challenges the current fashion for 'cancel culture'. When we tackled it on the NV Blog at the time of the troubles at which an Islamic Charity put one of the teacher's names into the public domain a Unite branch of Bury binmen and Tameside Trade Union Council attempted to move an emergency motion at the then online forthcoming National Conference of trade union councils in June this year. It was not accepted onto the agenda, as the TUCJCC were concerned that the Tameside Trades Council had not they claimed 'consulted with NEU', the union with the lead industrial interest.

Meanwhile, a member of the TUC-JCC also assures us:

'Kevin Courtney [the National Education Union General Secretary who gave his advice to get the Tameside TUC motion calling for solidarity for the victimized teachers rejected] is one of the best General Secretaries, ... and that they are doing he best they can in a difficult situation.'

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Ella Whelan on the 30 March, 2021 on THE CRITIC WEBSITE wrote the following essay:

The cowardice of senior staff at Batley Grammar should be a lesson to all educationalists about the importance of defending open discussion

One of my favourite cheesy films is Mona Lisa Smile. Julia Roberts plays an enlightened, feminist-y teacher pushing the boundaries of a socially conservative, private women’s college in Massachusetts. The moral of the story is that Roberts’ art classes and an emphasis on open debate inspire her students to realise that the world is bigger and more exciting than the four walls of their dormitories. In being shocked by the things their teacher tells them, the students gain the confidence to form their own opinions about what their futures will look like.

The events of last week show just how far cancel culture has expanded.

While Roberts’ fictional teacher gives up her job in favour of travelling Europe when the college attempts to restrict what she can and can’t teach, real-life scenarios rarely have Hollywood endings. A teacher at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire has been forced to go into hiding after protesters at the school demanded he be sacked and prosecuted. His crime? Showing his class cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad, allegedly from a copy of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Accurate information about what actually happened is still unclear, but it is alleged that students were shown a caricature with “Islamophobic tropes” during a discussion about blasphemy in a religion class. In fact, the only information that has found its way out has been the teacher’s name — a frightening prospect given the fact that the French teacher Samuel Party was beheaded in broad daylight just five months ago for showing students similar images.

The events of last week [at Batlet Grammar School] show just how far cancel culture has expanded, from online spats and campus politics to the world of everyday life. Without taking a breath, the headteacher of Batley Grammar, Gary Kibble, suspended the teacher and issued an “unequivocal” apology to the crowd of angry parents at the school gates. A police officer even had to read the school’s statement to the crowd, who had caused such a fuss that the school was forced to close. But Kibble’s grovelling sacrifice of his staff member hasn’t dented the protesters’ demands — some have told the press that “he should never teach again”, supported by a local Imam who demanded that “serious action [be] taken”.

It seems the only people at the school who have some courage to stand up for freedom of expression are the suspended teacher’s own cohort. “Against all odds, students wish to make a statement and reinstate him back as a teacher in Batley Grammar School due to his pure intentions”, says a petition, allegedly written by Batley Grammar’s pupils. It’s incredibly poignant that the adults both working in the school building and shouting from the school gates have been shown up by the students who know and love their teacher. The petition has since hit over 66,000 signatures from people across the country. “This is our repayment to that RS Teacher”, it says, “and if he sees this, we have a simple message for him. We thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

Parents should not be able to bring a school to a halt because they don’t like the content of a class Where are this teacher’s colleagues? Where are the teacher’s unions? Where are the authorities, who are supposed to protect citizens from intimidation and threats? The fact that the only people supporting the teacher’s right to “teach” kids difficult things like blasphemy, offence and free speech are the kids themselves tells you a lot about the state of education today. The fact that angry parents are calling for the teacher’s head (this time metaphorically, unlike the tragic murder of Paty) shows how flimsy the boundaries between school and home life have become. Parents should not be able to bring a school to a halt because they don’t like the content of a class. Those claiming this is a principled stance against islamophobia are being wilfully ignorant to the context in which the images were shown. Anyone who has sat through a whiney PTA meeting knows how irritating complaining parents can be — these protests are no different. But instead of teachers rolling their eyes, the protesters have been emboldened by the school caving in to their censorious demands

.

The cowardice of senior staff at Batley Grammar should be a lesson to all educationalists about the importance of defending open discussion. Schools should defend the idea that children are not there to have their own prejudices or beliefs cosseted, but to be educated — an experience that can often be difficult, challenging and sometimes upsetting. Many of us will remember a time when the assumptions we had about life were challenged by listening to views and opinions that were new to us. Part of a comprehensive religious education is to learn about the fact that the world is full of people with different beliefs (and none). If a student can’t handle the idea that there are some people who will mock and ridicule beliefs that they hold dear, sometimes in overtly offensive ways, there’s no hope of them being able to survive the world outside the school gates.

A precautionary, patronising approach to education has long been the view of the British education system.

There is no merit in upsetting students for the sake of it — especially when it comes to personal feelings like religious beliefs. But, according to the students’ petition, this is not what the teacher was doing — “we have watched our RS teacher defend the integrity of all religions within classes”, it says, “and we do not and will not believe he is racist in any way”. Instead of balancing the worth of the lesson against the complaints made by some students, the school seems to have jumped to the conclusion that all students are too soft to handle controversial subjects in any context. This safety-first attitude should come as a surprise to no one. A precautionary, patronising approach to education has long been the view of the British education system — from bans on red pens in marking and calls to cancel exams to combat “stress”, students are no longer expected to be pushed outside of their comfort zone.

What the crowd at Batley Grammar’s gates and the cowards in the headteacher’s office have in common is their inability to act like adults. We are all supposed to be children now — constantly in need of protection from hurt feelings or differing views, screaming for attention when things happen that we don’t like. The students don’t want to be infantilised in this way — their petition makes clear that they want to

“educate the future generations”

by not shying away from tricky subjects or uncomfortable views. What these kids understand (that their parents and teachers seem to have forgotten) is that education is about taking risks. Here’s hoping Batley Grammar sees sense and issues an apology to the one person who really deserves it.

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The UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment

ACADEMICS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM

6th June 2021 Dennis Hayes News

The decision to lift the suspension of the Batley Grammar School teacher does not necessarily mean he can safely return to work. As the second half term begins, we do not know if he will return. Whatever happens, he will have to live under constant fear. His possible return is not helped by the wording of the decision, which is a victory for mob rule, intolerance and contains a recommendation that the teacher and the school self-censor and the avoid giving offence in class in the future. The independent inquiry convened by the school found that the teacher and his colleagues did not show the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a lesson on blasphemy with the ‘intention to cause offence’. But the school felt it had to make an abject apology, recognising that ‘using the image did cause deep offence to a number of students, parents and members of our school community. The Trust deeply regrets the distress this has caused’. (Executive Summary).

This is not the end of what we could call the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment as some may hope. What happened at Batley Grammar School is a triumph for those who do not merely shout “That’s offensive!” but physically intimidate students and teachers while making demands for disciplinary action or the sacking of those they believe have caused offence. Mob rule by Islamists and others will be encouraged by this decision and by the cowardice of teachers and teacher unions to stand up for the freedom to teach.

The Charlie Hebdo moment began with a mob

Thursday 25 March 2021 was the day when the UK began to experience its ‘Charlie Hebdo’ moment. A mob gathered outside Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire to demand the sacking of an RS teacher who had apparently shown students the cartoons of Muhammed that had appeared in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. This was during a lesson on blasphemy. It seems perfectly reasonable to illustrate ‘blasphemy’ with reference to these cartoons that incensed Islamists to slaughter 12 of the writers, editors and cartoonists at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris on 7 January 2015. What is happening in the UK is less violent but equally frightening.

A Muslim Charity calling itself ‘Purpose of Life’ had written to the school head teacher demanding that the RE teacher – who they named – be sacked. It appeared to be behind the protests at the school gates. They were offended that the Prophet Muhammed had been depicted and saw it as blasphemy. They did not care that there is no blasphemy law in Yorkshire (or the UK) and that criticism and satire about any religion is allowed. They did not care about freedom of speech!

The weak head teacher, Gary Kibble, caved in immediately and had a statement read out unreservedly apologising for what had happened. He said that the use of the cartoons was ‘completely inappropriate’ and would not happen again. The teacher was suspended pending an investigation.

If Mr Kibble thought that an abject capitulation to a mob would resolve matters, he was incredibly naïve. The next day another mob of mostly Muslim men, unconnected with the school, turned up outside and vowed to stay there until the teacher was sacked. The consistently weak Mr Kibble closed the school.

There were death threats against the teacher, whose name and address were known. He went into hiding with his family in the early morning of Friday 26 March, possibly under the direction and protection of the police.

This tragic situation resembled the persecution of the French teacher of history and geography, Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by Islamists in October 2020 for allegedly showing his class the Charlie Hebdo cartoons to illustrate his country’s commitment to freedom of speech and expression. The letter from parents and Muslim groups that preceded the murder of Paty has a parallel in the early response to the lesson by the RS teacher. In France, a fatwa was issued condemning Paty. There was no need for a fatwa in Batley. The head teacher had internalised the fatwa in his thinking.

The silence of the teacher unions

As happened in the case of Samuel Paty, the teacher unions were silent. A teacher was driven into hiding in fear of his life and they said nothing. They could not bring themselves to defend a fellow teacher for fear of being called ‘Islamophobic’. They were as cowardly as the head teacher and a disgrace to the profession and failures to what could be a brilliant moment for free thinking and debate.

The heroes of the moment

The real heroes of the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment were the Batley Grammar School students. They launched a petition on Change.org to demand their teacher be reinstated. Within hours it had over 10,000 signatures and at the time of writing has over 71,400 signatures.

Putting the teacher unions to shame a union branch of bin-men kicked up a stink about the suspended by putting forward a motion from their trade union branch to Shamefully, the National Education Union, the largest teacher union, tried to get them to withdraw it.

AFAF, the Free Speech Union, and several individuals, wrote to the head teacher and demanded that the RE teacher be reinstated immediately and allowed to return to work. They received no response.

The fatwa determines future practice

Not only the head teacher and the teacher unions but the barrister leading the ‘independent’ inquiry have internalised the fatwa. The executive summary of the enquiry states:

“The Trust will not avoid addressing challenging subject matter in its classrooms, but it is committed to ensuring that offence is not caused and that this is always done with care and sensitivity, enabling students to build empathy, mutual respect and understanding” [italics added].

No one has the right not to be offended and if a curriculum is designed to avoid offending anyone then it will be no more than a political tract.

If fear of the mob determines what we are free to teach and silences trade unions, then freedom in education will be under threat from future mobs. It is not good enough to hope the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment will simply go away. Cowardly capitulation can only encourage more Islamist, and other, offended mobs.

The Batley and Spen parliamentary by-election is a chance for all candidates to speak up for free speech. The UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment is far from over. #JesuisBatleyGSteacher.

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Blasphemy must be issue in the Batley by-election

The candidates must stand up for the local teacher who has been hounded into hiding by Islamists.

by Paul Stott on the Spiked website 13th May 2021

How soon we forget. A schoolteacher and his young family are living away from their home in Batley, Yorkshire. It is entirely possible they are under armed guard. They have been in hiding for over six weeks after receiving threats from religious zealots. All because the teacher reportedly showed a cartoon of Muhammad in the course of his teaching.

The teacher is also under investigation by his employer, and he knows that the process is potentially stacked against him. The school’s headmaster has publicly criticised his actions, and the campaigners who demanded his sacking have requested to be part of the team conducting the inquiry. His trade union, the National Education Union, is known to have funded a local Islamic charity, Purpose of Life, which has circulated the teacher’s name and has even accused him of ‘terrorism’. Should the investigation fail to result in his dismissal, it will undoubtedly be denounced as a whitewash and an example of institutional ‘Islamophobia’. The mob will likely return to the schoolgates. The teachers and pupils of Batley Grammar School deserve better.

In last week’s local elections, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, Tracy Brabin, was elected as the first mayor of West Yorkshire. While some MPs insist they can juggle serving as an MP and a mayor (such as Dan Jarvis, Labour MP for Barnsley Central and mayor of the Sheffield City Region), Brabin is expected to step down as an MP, triggering a by-election.

Batley and Spen is another traditionally Labour-voting Red Wall seat which is looking vulnerable to a Tory challenge. Labour’s majority in Batley and Spen fell from 8,691 in 2017 to 3,525 in 2019. The even-worse news for arch-Remainer Sir Keir Starmer is that Batley and Spen voted 59.3 per cent to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.

Tracy Brabin won Batley and Spen in a by-election in October 2016, following the murder of the Labour incumbent, Jo Cox, by far-right terrorist Thomas Mair. He shouted ‘Britain first!’ while shooting and stabbing her. A passer-by, Bernard Kenny, was also stabbed. He received the George Medal for attempting to save Cox’s life. When a by-election was called to elect a new MP, the main parties did not contest it out of respect for Cox, allowing Labour a clear run.

The ugly threat of violence has since returned to Batley and Spen, and will surely hang over the 2021 by-election. This time the aggressors are not from the far right, but from an Islamist scene that has an even greater propensity for violence than Britain’s neo-Nazis. In 2016, the main parties stood as one against the violence of the far right. In this by-election, they again need to step up. Each candidate needs to declare loudly and clearly that what is happening at Batley Grammar is unacceptable.

In a liberal democracy, schoolteachers must be free to teach children about contentious issues. That includes showing caricatures and images that some find offensive. A core function of education is preparing children for the real world, not protecting them from it. Education policy cannot be surrendered to any mob that can get enough people together at the school gates. If education can be influenced like this, what is the point of holding by-elections, or of political parties developing policies, if we simply go along with whoever shouts the loudest?

The Batley Grammar School teacher needs to be able to return to his home and to his day job. Every candidate who stands in Batley needs to be asked how they will ensure this happens, and how this country can ensure such an outrage is never repeated again. Liberal democracy endured after an attack by a fascist in 2016. It should not roll over and accept defeat by Islamists in 2021.

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SPECTATOR: In praise of the Batley binmen

by Brendan O’Neill

If you need someone to support your right to freedom of speech, forget the teaching unions. Don’t look to the commentariat. And don’t even bother with the Labour party, many of whose younger, angrier members will often be found in the ranks of cancel-culture mobs calling for someone or other to be erased from polite society for having blasphemed against a trendy new orthodoxy.

No, it’s the binmen you want to turn to. It’s the nation’s fine refuse collectors who will back you up when your liberty to speak is being pummelled.

Consider the case of the Batley Grammar schoolteacher who was suspended for showing his pupils an image of Muhammad during a religious studies lesson. Alarmingly, that teacher is still in hiding, fearing for his life. He has received death threats simply for doing what all good teachers should do: challenge their students to consider difficult moral questions.

The supposedly liberal establishment behaved shamefully in response to the demonisation and harassment of the teacher. Batley Grammar itself, in the face of angry protests outside the school gates, suspended him. The school essentially ‘threw him under a bus’, the teacher’s family said.

The teaching unions stayed almost entirely schtum about the case for ages. ‘It would not be appropriate to make any further comment’ while the school is investigating the incident, said the National Education Union. Not appropriate for a teaching union to comment on the fact that a teacher had received threats to his life and is now, according to his father, ‘devastated and crushed’, an ‘emotional wreck’?

In which case, why do teaching unions even exist?

The political class wasn’t much better. Tracy Brabin, then the Labour MP for Batley, now the Mayor of West Yorkshire, praised the school for dealing swiftly with this incident that had caused so much ‘offence' and 'upset’. She essentially sided with the protesters who wanted a teacher punished for blasphemy — these days referred to as ‘offence' and 'upset’ — rather than with the teacher and his right to free expression.

But not everyone has turned their backs on this persecuted teacher. Enter the binmen of Bury. Shaming the intellectual elites, these workers have taken a principled stand on behalf of the teacher and his right to free speech in the classroom.

The Bury branch of Unite, which represents refuse collectors, has put forward a motion championing the Batley teacher. The emergency motion, submitted for consideration at the National Conference of Trade Union Councils in June, urges all unions to back the teacher.

The motion points out that England’s blasphemy laws were formally abolished more than a decade ago and insists there should be no ‘dogmatic restraints’ on our right to discuss religious matters, including Islamic matters.

The proponent of the motion is Brian Bamford, secretary of Tameside Trade Union Council and a retired electrician. He says:

‘This is a motion which has come in from binmen, from ordinary working people… Freedom of expression is very important. I don’t feel guilty in any way for taking a stand on this issue.’

Bamford says an NEU official contacted him and asked him to consider withdrawing the motion. Apparently the official told him the motion ‘risks inflaming what is an extremely sensitive and very complex situation’. An NEU spokesperson said: 'It is a sensitive issue and the NEU did ask for the motion to be withdrawn. With every viewpoint that is expressed our members face yet more public exposure.'

Got that? Binmen and other working-class union members want to express support for a teacher who has been hounded into hiding for a supposed speechcrime, and a teaching union official is reportedly saying to them, ‘Please don’t do this’. This is bonkers.

These binmen have shown us what true solidarity looks like. Their support for the Batley teacher is in keeping with the best traditions of working-class activism. They saw someone being harried and silenced merely for displaying a religious image and they’re not having it. More power to their elbow, and their motion.

They have also shown up what passes for the liberal establishment these days. Too many people in positions of power treat freedom of speech as a negotiable commodity rather than as a core principle of democratic life. Too many turn away — or nod along — as people are shunted out of polite society merely for criticising Islam, or asking questions about transgenderism, or making an un-PC joke. Get 12 weeks for £12

Plus a free bottle of Digby Fine English fizz

Many so-called liberals now consider the right not to be offended to be more important than the right to free expression. So when they saw that fuss outside Batley Grammar, they instinctively sided with the right of the protesters to glide through life without ever having their religious beliefs called into question, rather than with the right of a teacher in a pluralistic democracy to use his freedom of expression to challenge and enlighten his pupils.

Thankfully, there are still people, like those Bury binmen – and of course like the Free Speech Union – who understand that no one has the right not to be offended. Who understand that freedom of expression is more important than any individual’s feelings or any religion’s diktats? Binmen for Free Speech — it’s exactly the campaign we need right now.

Written by Brendan O’Neill

Brendan O’Neill is the editor of Spiked, the online magazine.

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Binmen kick up a stink in aid of Batley teacher

by Camilla Turner, Daily Telegraph, Education Editor

When a teacher was suspended from his school after showing a picture of the Prophet Mohammed in class, he reportedly felt as though he had been “thrown under a bus”.

The National Education Union (NEU), was accused of failing to stand up for its own member after it did not immediately condemn the threats of violence and intimidation he faced in the wake of the row.

But now, the Batley Grammar School religious studies teacher has found unlikely support from a Bury branch of Unite, which largely represents binmen.

Brian Bamford, secretary of Tameside Trade Union Council, has submitted an emergency motion for the National Conference of Trade Union Councils in June to champion the cause of the suspended teacher.

The motion urges the NEU and all other unions to support the teacher and to publicly condemn those demanding his dismissal.

It notes that blasphemy laws were abolished more than a decade ago, and adds that “dogmatic restraints” should not be imposed on the religious education curriculum.

Mr Bamford is also secretary of Bury Unite commercial branch in the North West, which represents binmen across the borough, and the motion’s wording had to be approved by the branch committee before being passed up to the Tameside TUC which it is affiliated to.

"This is a motion which has come in from bin men, from ordinary working people," said Mr Bamford, a retired electrician who has been active in the trade union movement since the 1970s.

“As far as I can see, staying silent goes contrary to what we believe in at our branch, and especially in the trade congress.

“We are affiliated to the Orwell Society and freedom of expression is very important. I don’t feel guilty in any way for taking a stand on this issue.”

Mr Bamford claimed that an NEU official attempted to pressurise him into withdrawing the motion on the basis that it was “unhelpful” to draw further attention to the issue.

He said he was phoned by the official who asked him to "reconsider" the motion since it "risks inflaming what is an extremely sensitive and very complex situation" for members.

Mr Bamford was told that the NEU has an obligation to the “wider community in Batley" and that any further attention on the matter would "set back quite sensitive negotiations".

But he said he has no intention of abandoning the motion, adding that the school curriculum should not be “dictated by an indignant mob” who congregated outside Batley Grammar School just before the Easter break.

“We are troubled that a teacher can be suspended following protests about his teaching methods and use of materials,” Mr Bamford said.

“We are outraged that the teachers involved are being challenged for trying to broaden their students' horizons and encourage their critical thought.

“We don't believe that the determination of the use of teaching resources in a school should be influenced by people taking offence, and using intimidation and threats.”

Batley Grammar School sent pupils home early for the Easter holidays and issued an apology after a group of Muslims gathered at the gates to protest. The headmaster announced that the religious studies teacher had been suspended while the school looked into what happened.

The 29-year-old teacher and his family went into hiding after reportedly receiving death threats in the wake of the protests. The academy trust that runs Batley Grammar School announced at the end of March that it would carry out an “independent” investigation into the context in which the cartoon was shown.

A by-election has been triggered in Batley after Tracy Brabin stepped down as MP when she was elected as West Yorkshire's first metro mayor.

Ms Brabin, 60, replaced Jo Cox as Batley and Spen MP in a by-election in 2016 after Ms Cox was murdered by a far-right extremist. The seat will be seen as a key test for Labour after the party lost the Hartlepool by-election to the Conservatives earlier this month.

An NEU spokesperson said: "It is a sensitive issue and the NEU did ask for the motion to be withdrawn. With every viewpoint that is expressed our members face yet more public exposure."

They added that "speculation is unhelpful, not least for our members who the NEU are fully supporting throughout this investigation and will be doing so beyond the investigation".

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NEU: An Apology For A Union by Les May

FIRST a declaration of interests:

I spent 44 of my 49 years of working life in education; twenty five of them in secondary schools, hence my interest in the action, or more correctly, the inaction, of the National Education Union (NEU) in defending the teachers at Batley Grammar School.

The National Education Union (NEU) is determined to avoid any scrutiny by the media of what is actually happening at the school by claiming that the matter is close to being resolved. Not only is scrutiny by the media unwelcome but the NEU is keeping its own members in the dark, members who pay their union subscriptions in the hope that if their livelihood and well being come under attack for any reason connected with their employment, the union will defend them.

The events which have led to one teacher going into hiding in fear of his life took place on 22 March. A group of parents demanding that he be sacked and they be allowed to determine the contents of the Religious Studies curriculum began to demonstrate in the days following as was widely reported at the time.

The May/June 2021 edition of ‘educate’ the magazine published bimonthly by the NEU contains a four page report of the online annual conference held between 7 and 9 April including a short 150 word piece which uses the words ‘free speech’ no less than four times, but no mention of the goings on at Batley Grammar School, though there was plenty of time for a piece to be included and members informed of the union’s stance.

Donald Trump was widely attacked in the media by those who uphold basic democratic values for his unwillingness to condemn those who peddle extremist philosophies. When it comes to making an unequivocal statement utterly condemning the behaviour of those who have brought about this threat to the life of one of the teachers concerned and who continue to try to dictate to our society what should be taught in our schools, the NEU has shown itself to be an abject failure and an apology for a union. Insisting that those of us who are not followers of Islam should be forced to follow any of its precepts is an extremist philosophy. It is not ‘Islamophobic’ to say so and it is time NEU said so.

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The French Connection by Les May

CONNOISSEURS of the absurd were no doubt amused by the NV articles of 5 and 6 April which told how the Kirklees branch of the National Education Union (NEU) gave £3,000 to the charity which through its Chief Executive had named the teacher accused of ‘blasphemy’, a crime that does not exist under English law, and so potentially put his life in danger from fanatics acting in the name of Islam.

Any condemnation by the NEU of either the actions of the man who did this and his demand that the teacher be removed from the school or of the attempt to reinstate the ‘crime’ of blasphemy by stealth, has been made pianissimo to say the least

.

But anyone with access to back copies of Educate the NEU print journal will remember how in the November/December 2020 copy on page 20 there was an article with the heading ‘Brutal Killing of French teacher’. It went as follows:

‘The NEU condemned the killing outside his school of French teacher Samuel Paty on 16 October. In a statement the union said: “Teachers must have the right to carry out their daily work in safety. No one should face threats for violence in the course of their working lives. Members of the NEU in the UK are deeply shocked by this brutal killing. Teaching about our human rights and inspiring students to play a positive role in society is part of the vital work teaches across the world carry out diligently every day.” The joint general secretaries sent letters of condolence and solidarity to the NEU’s sister union in France, the SNES-FSU, and to the French Education Minister.’

Humbug! Humbug! Humbug!

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“Farce”, education union funds Muslim charity that publicised Batley teacher’s name

FROM 'The Foxhole' website

1 April 2021

A teacher’s union has given £3,000 to a controversial Muslim charity linked to the Batley RS teacher’s ongoing suspension, the Telegraph reveals.

Batley Grammar School hit the headlines last week after angry members of the local Muslim community amassed outside the school’s premises calling for the teacher’s dismissal after he had shown his class images of the Prophet Muhammad. Caving in to pressure, the teacher was suspended and the school issued a grovelling apology.

Purpose of Life caused astonishment on the back of the events in revealing the teacher’s name. He and his family then went into hiding, fearing jihadist reprisals. The charity’s leader, Mohammad Sajad Hussain was invited onto Talk Radio and asked whether he did not think he had a responsibility to avoid inflaming the situation, having accused the teacher of “terrorism” and “insulting Islam”.

Asked five times by host, Julia Hartley-Brewer whether he thought showing images of the Prophet was worse than beheadings, Hussain only said no at the fifth and final time of asking.

Earlier this week, the father of the teacher said his son’s life was in danger. “Eventually they will get my son and he knows this. His whole world has been turned upside down. He’s devastated and crushed,” he told the Daily Mail.

The distraught father also said the school had thrown “him under a bus”. Purpose of Life continues to call for his sacking.

Now it has been discovered the union representing Batley grammar gave a generous donation to the charity, which then posted a video on social media thanking the now-disgraced union.

Reacting to the contribution made by its Kirklees branch, the National Education Union admitted the West Yorkshire charity should “never have published” the teacher’s name. The NEU spokesperson pointed out that Purpose of Life had “now withdrawn the name and apologised”, adding: “We would ask all media and all other organisations to refrain from naming names. We believe this to be a major breach of privacy with serious repercussions for our member.”

A spokesperson for the Charity Commission said: “We are aware of this matter. We have contacted the trustees of Purpose of Life for further information and their response to our regulatory concerns – this will inform our next steps. We cannot comment further at this time.”

Dr Paul Stott of freedom and democracy think tank, the Henry Jackson Society was much more forthright: “There is now a real question mark about the ability of the NEU to represent its members at Batley Grammar School. That the Kirklees branch of the NEU has funded an organisation that calls for the sacking of a schoolteacher for doing his job is lamentable.

“The NEU now needs to review the organisations it funds and works with to avoid a repetition of this farce.”

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What A Farce by Les May

A RECENT article in The Telegraph claimed that the Kirklees branch of the National Education Union (NEU) gave £3,000 to Purpose of Life, a charity based in West Yorkshire, which later published online the name of the teacher at the centre of the row at Batley Grammar School.

As well as accusing the teacher of 'terrorism' and 'insulting Islam', the group's chief executive, Mohammad Sajad Hussain, said that the charity would not work with the school again until the Religous Studies teacher is 'permanently removed'.

The Kirklees branch is, of course, the one ‘supporting’ the teacher through the disciplinary process initiated by the school. Quite why this NEU branch thought that this donation was an appropriate use of its members’ union fees is unclear.

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