Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Starmer is falling into Boris’s trap on school reopenings

Boris Johnson visits a school in Upminster (photo: Getty)

The National Education Union has issued 200 safety demands they want met before schools are to fully reopen in September. The response from many Tory MPs to this has been to describe the list as a ‘wreckers’ charter’, designed to make a return to the classroom this autumn practically impossible.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, is establishing getting kids back to school full-time once again in September as one of the guiding missions of his premiership. As the prime minister said, ‘now that we know enough to reopen schools to all pupils safely, we have a moral duty to do so.’

This is a wise move by Boris Johnson. Getting the classrooms full again is a big opportunity with little political risk. Even if we do have a second wave of coronavirus this winter, blaming it on schools isn’t going to have a lot of political currency. In the meantime, Johnson can be the one who got the kids learning again – and he can paint Keir Starmer as someone who tried to stop that from happening, or at the very least, stood by weakly as the unions tried to halt the whole thing. At least, unless Starmer makes a countermove very soon.

The battle over reopening schools leaves Starmer in a difficult position. The leader of the opposition has avoided the topic for a few months now, but he can’t do so forever. At some point he will be forced to essentially side with Boris Johnson’s plan to reopen the schools, or stand with the teaching unions, given the list of 200 safety demands will not be met. It is hard to see a middle ground between the two positions that will open up for Starmer, without appearing to most of middle England that he doesn’t want children to get an education again.

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Nick Tyrone
Written by
Nick Tyrone
Nick Tyrone is a former director of CentreForum, described as 'the closest thing the Liberal Democrats have had to a think tank'. He is author of several books including 'Politics is Murder'

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