https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/farage-is-just-a-pound-shop-trump

National Education Union vows to fight Reform UK’s election candidates and racist policies

REFORM UK is a racist and far-right political party led by a “pound shop Donald Trump,” thundered National Education Union (NEU) general secretary Daniel Kebede today at the annual conference of Britain’s largest teaching union.

Delegates donning “Stop Racist Reform UK” T-shirts voted to use the union’s political fund to campaign against Reform election candidates with racist policies and campaigns.

Passed weeks before next month’s local elections, the motion highlighted Reform’s campaigns against migrants, denouncing it as among the organisations seeking to build “on the despair, poverty and alienation in our society by scapegoating refugees, asylum-seekers, Muslims, Jews and others who do not fit their beliefs.”

Speaking after the debate, Mr Kebede said that Reform is a right-wing populist organisation whose denials of racism don’t ring true with how they “seem to be attracting an awful lot of former BNP activists.”

“Nigel Farage has clearly said that he would like to see private healthcare,” the union leader said, before raising concerns over what a party that has “declared war on the teaching profession” would do to education.

“He is friends with [US President] Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” Mr Kebede continued. “Musk wants to ‘gamify’ education and Trump has just abolished the US Department for Education,” he said.

“We will absolutely be using our political fund to campaign against candidates as appropriate.”

Asked what he thought was behind Mr Farage recently vowing to “wage war” on the NEU, he added: “It’s just nonsense straight out of the Trump playbook.

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