Private schools:We’ll see Labour in court

Backlash over party’s pledge to force all pupils into the state system

Private schools vowed to mount legal challenges to Labour’s plan to abolish them last night as a backlash over the policy grew.

Groups representing independent schools, including eton, said the move could be in conflict with human rights laws – and any bid to scrap them would be ‘tested in the courts for years to come, if ever Labour comes to power’.

the intervention came as the Prime Minister weighed into the debate yesterday, pointing out the hypocrisy of the Shadow Cabinet – many of whom attended or send their children to private schools.

Boris Johnson said: ‘it is unbelievable hypocrisy from the Labour Party to now trot out this measure from the 1970s. it is extraordinary that they have excavated this from the crypt of what i thought had been long-buried socialist ideology.’

Meanwhile, a snap poll last night showed half of the public reject the policy, passed at the Labour conference on Sunday, with only a fifth supporting it, YouGov found. the plan, which suggests abolishing private schools and absorbing their assets into the state system, would mean the end of world-class institutions like eton, Harrow and Marlborough, and could cost £7billion if implemented. even Labour members are split 38 per cent in favour and 35 per cent against, the poll showed.

Yesterday, the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents private schools including eton, warned the move could conflict with human rights legislation. Director Mike Buchanan said Labour activists had not ‘ revealed any understanding of how they intend to seize property, overcome human rights legislation... or how they will protect the employment conditions and rights of thousands of teachers and support staff’.

‘they can expect to be tested in the courts for years to come if ever Labour comes to power.’

Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the independent Schools Council, said the plan contravenes the UN Declaration of Human rights, which states parents have the ‘prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children’, and the european Convention on Human rights. He said: ‘it means that the Labour Party is planning to withdraw from parents the right to bring up their children in the way they think is best. the state would be effectively seizing the children off parents in this country.’

eCHr decisions are not binding, but UK courts are bound to take their rulings into consideration, even after Brexit. the abolition motion was approved overwhelmingly by Labour delegates at the party conference. But it has prompted accusations of hypocrisy given senior party figures, including Diane abbott and Shami Chakrabarti, have educated their children privately.

Mr Corbyn, his advisers Seumas Milne and James Schneider, and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell all attended private schools. Yesterday, Mr McDonnell appeared to distance himself from the ‘draconian’ policy, saying it would proceed ‘on the basis of consultation’.