Let’s address the ‘culture war’
The latest iteration of the so-called ‘culture war’ arrived this week in the form of the Education Select Committee’s report into “left behind white pupils”. The report, “The forgotten: how White working-class pupils have been let down and how to change it” argues that terms such as “white privilege” have caused white working class pupils to fall behind their ethnic minority classmates.
Despite the report’s self-confessed “limited” and “imperfect” data, recommendations include instructing schools to review whether the “promotion of politically controversial terminology” including white privilege, “is consistent with their duties under the Equality Act”. This conclusion, and others like it, have meant the report’s more thoughtful proposals have been largely lost from the subsequent debate.
Although the value of terms such as white privilege are contested, its inclusion as a key focus of a report on educational attainment has merely served to distract from the Conservative Party’s poor record on education.
Consciously or not, the deployment of methods such as these aids a broader government strategy that seeks to embellish the Government’s record and retain a sense of insurgency politics after a decade in power. In the face of this strategy, it is vital that Labour is strategic in its response.
The Government is more comfortable fending off an imagined incursion of “woke” politics in the classroom than it is defending its failure to secure access to online learning by providing laptops and WiFi to disadvantaged children. Debates on education policy that centre around abstract terms like “white privilege” are preferable to being held accountable for the number of teachers forced into buying their own classroom supplies.
Labour should call these tactics out for what they are – a distraction – and let the Conservative Party’s record in Government speak for itself. Various studies have shown that if white working class are indeed “left behind”, it’s more likely a consequence of place than race. At the heart of this issue is a sustained lack of Government funding that has negatively impacted all kids from poor backgrounds. After an 8% real terms cut to school spending per pupil in England over the last decade, is it any surprise that communities are feeling left behind?
It is here that Labour must focus its attention. It is a line of argument best articulated by Maurice Mcleod, Chief Executive of Race on the Agenda, who contends that “instead of honestly accepting that children from all backgrounds have been badly let down by decades of neglect, [the report] attempts to create unhelpful divides between children based on their race”.
The strategy deployed throughout Keir Starmer’s leadership so far has been to largely avoid commenting on divisive issues such as these, and allow for other shadow ministers to offer their muted support for various causes. Yet what the education report illustrates is that no area of policy is far away from being tied to issues of race, culture and nationhood.
Going forward, Starmer and the new communications team he is poised to appoint must be ready to tackle these issues head on. This means being prepared to articulate coherent positions on divisive cultural issues when it matters, and offering a bold economic vision for the 2020’s and beyond.
Gregor Dron
Connect Group