‘Snob’ Labour MP claims that Remainers are more educated
A LABOUR MP has been accused of snobbery after saying it was the ‘ better educated people’ who voted to stay in the EU.
Barry sheerman said: ‘You can actually see the pattern, nearly all the university towns voted Remain.’
Mr sheerman is the MP for huddersfield in the borough of Kirklees – which voted Leave in the referendum last year.
Tory MP for Pudsey stuart andrew described the remarks as ‘snobbery’.
Mr sheerman made the comment during a discussion of the letter sent last week to universities by Tory MP Chris heaton-harris asking for the names of professors teaching courses involving Brexit.
The Labour MP claimed that Mr heaton-harris was indulging in ‘ McCarthyite sort of tactics’.
In response, Mr andrew described sending the letter as ‘probably not’ the best thing to do, but denied that it had been an attempt to intimidate lecturers.
he said Mr heaton-harris ‘was genuinely trying to find out what was being discussed in our universities’. Mr sheerman, speaking on the BBC’s sunday Politics programme claimed the letter was an attempt to ‘ frighten campuses’.
‘This man who went to Wolverhampton Polytechnic, who does he think he is, trying to frighten my university in huddersfield?’ said Mr sheerman.
‘ The truth is that when you look at who voted to remain, most of them were the better educated people in our country.’
Mr andrew said: ‘ I am astounded by this snobbery. The fact that Chris went to some polytechnic is some problem.’ Yesterday Mr sheerman tweeted: ‘Pleased that my comments on link between Brexit support and lower educational attainment has stimulated debate.’
he added: ‘Crystal clear Tory party no longer the nasty party, Brexit has transformed it into the stupid party.’
Polls have shown that more than eight in ten university staff supported the Remain side in last year’s referendum.
It has led to claims that some higher education institutions are biased against Brexit.
Mr sheerman’s comments provoked a storm of contro- versy online, according to the huddersfield Daily Examiner.
Michael Taylor tweeted: ‘I wonder how many of the people Mr sheerman is supposed to represent are outraged by his moronic remarks?’
‘Stimulated debate’
UNIVERSITY students have revealed they avoid writing proBrexit essays because they fear being marked down.
Some fear that free debate on the issue is being ‘ shut down’ by pro-Remain lecturers.
They include undergraduates studying law, politics, and philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) degrees, which often deal with the subject directly.
Last night, universities minister Jo Johnson reacted by saying universities had a duty to ‘ open minds’ and allow proper debates on controversial topics. But Jamie Hollywood, a PPE student at Goldsmiths, University of London, told the Sunday Telegraph yesterday: ‘I’ve experienced incredible Brexit bias. In my first lecture in philosophy, the lecturer, who is European, told the class that Brexit was a nationalist enterprise.
‘He also said that he would be kicked out of the country, which was clearly inappropriate – and absurd.’
A law and politics graduate at Cardiff University said: ‘ There was a genuine culture of contempt in our faculty for Brexit. I was told explicitly by my tutor, “do not advance Eurosceptic arguments in your essays, because you will irk the examiner”.’
William Bates, a politics and international relations student at the University of the West of England said: ‘ Our essays are often marked based on how receptive lecturers are to your arguments.
‘You can take a Left-wing or centrist stance, but you’d be mad to write anything Eurosceptic.’ Dr Andrew Dunne, former programme leader for Social Policy at the University of Lincoln, told the Daily Mail: ‘I don’t blame students for not wanting to take a risk, and it is a genuine risk.
‘I’ve met one or two academics in my career who would look unfavourably on a paper that was very good, but was written from the wrong political perspective.’
He said one colleague at another
Thursday’s Daily Mail university had claimed a student was not intelligent because he was interested in the Right-wing theories of Friedrich Hayek.
Alan Sked, emeritus professor of international history at LSE, added: ‘[Universities have been] galvanised like Soviet universities were under the Soviet system – the whole academic force mobilising to come out in favour of the party line. You just have to rely on the good sense and intelligence of stu- dents who will stand up against the propaganda.’
It is understood that the new Office for Students (OfS), a regulator with powers to strip universities of their degree-awarding status, will be monitoring the issue.
Mr Johnson said: ‘Universities must open minds not close them. That’s why I have asked for the OfS to ensure that all universities fulfil their duty to promote freedom of speech and the role it plays in generating rigorous debate...’
Sir Michael Barber, chairman of the OfS, told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘The duty to protect freedom of speech also applies to academics, and diverse views should be encouraged.’ A spokesman for Goldsmiths said that the lecturer mentioned had been trying to ‘ stimulate discussion’ and was not involved in the marking of course assignments.
And a Cardiff spokesman said they had been unaware of the allegations, adding that the university encouraged students with concerns to report them.
UWE said it was ‘very surprised’ by the claims, adding that it would ‘never expect’ students to ‘selfcensor assignments’.
It comes after Tory MP Chris Heaton- Harris was vilified on social media for writing to university vice chancellors requesting information on any teaching on Brexit. Chris Patten, the chancellor of Oxford University, described the request as ‘idiotic Leninism’.