The furore over the Law Lords’ overruling of the government on Brexit protocols had me reaching for my copy of the Department for Education’s guidance on “Fundamental British Values” (FBVs).
FBVs, you’ll recall, are values that schools are bound to “actively promote”; you would assume that they are pretty non-partisan and well supported by consensus.
And they were so much so that they were initially criticised for being rather anodyne and insipid. After all, what reasonable citizen of a democracy could not sign up to them? They seemed designed to exclude only the radicalised opponents of western ways of life.
There was some degree of scepticism about how specifically ‘British’ they were.
Many felt that they quite handily adumbrated universal Enlightenment principles, although the central place ascribed to the importance of respecting other, equally valid, cultures and beliefs seemed to owe quite a lot to the historicist, relativist tradition of the counter-enlightenment.
But the first response was on the whole quite dismissive. Were these values so universal as to be vacuous?
Recent events, however, prompt the thought that perhaps these values statements deserve more consideration and credit.
To be sure, they are fundamental rather more than they are British, but that makes them all the more powerful, and worth defending against efforts at undermining from a surprising quarter.
The High Court Brexit ruling was described by cabinet minister Sajid Javid as “unacceptable”, and the judges’ characters were assassinated by the Daily Mail.
There have even been calls, from the Right, for democratic control of judges. That critique conflates two of the FBVs - democracy and rule of law.
The government’s guidance on FBVs, it turns out, has a great deal to say on the matter.
To be compliant, schools must “enable students to … respect the civil and criminal law of England”. This might just amount to the expectation that careers departments discourage students from contemplating a life of crime, but then again schools have to “enable students to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions”.
Coming even closer to home, we are required to “encourage … respect for the basis on which the law is made and applied in England”.
When the FBV guidance moves on to the kinds of knowledge and understanding expected of students, the legal system looms loftily. Students are expected to have “an appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their wellbeing and safety”.
And, anticipating the recent spat, students must understand “that there is a separation of power between the executive and the judiciary, and that while some public bodies such as the police and the army can be held to account through Parliament, others such as the courts maintain independence”.
For educational purposes the “rule of law” sits alongside “democracy” as a fundamental British value. In practice these values might find themselves in considerable tension.
But the FBVs turn out to have substance. Reason, respect, the rule of law - these are values well worthy of an educator’s efforts.
Dr Kevin Stannard is the director of innovation and learning at the Girls’ Day School Trust. He tweets as @KevinStannard1
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