The head of the secondary dubbed “England’s strictest school” has called for “the Right to unite” to stop Labour “vampires” taking charge of education policy.
Katharine Birbalsingh, who founded Michaela Community School in north-west London, told a Policy Exchange gathering that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn “doesn’t believe in anything that is good for schools”.
The event was held by the right-of-centre thinktank to discuss what the next prime minister should do for education.
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Ms Birbalsingh said: “I think the most important thing for education ultimately is that we get someone leading the Conservative Party who is going to unite the Right, because if the Right remains broken the way that it currently is then Corbyn will get into power, and that would be the worst possible thing that could happen to education and to free schools, which I obviously believe in.”
Ms Birbalsingh, who said she was not a member of the Conservative Party, added: “We need to remember that we have the vampires knocking at the door. And when vampires are knocking at the door, forget about all these details. I don’t care who runs the Conservative Party - they just need to save it.
Corbyn ‘doesn’t believe in anything good for schools’
“The reason is that Corbyn does not believe in Sats, he doesn’t believe in testing, he doesn’t believe in high standards, he doesn’t believe in holding schools to account, he doesn’t believe in league tables, he doesn’t believe in anything that is good for schools.”
In April, the Labour leader announced that a future Labour government would scrap Sats and the Reception baseline assessment.
Ms Birbalsingh was speaking on a panel which also included school standards minister Nick Gibb and Luke Tryl, the director of the government-backed free schools charity the New Schools Network.
Speaking before the Tory leadership race narrowed to Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, she said: “I’m no spokesman for the Conservative Party - I don’t like the Conservatives on many days - however we have the vampires knocking at the door, so all of us who are thinking, ‘Oh, I like Sajid Javid for this reason,’ ‘I like Boris,’ or ‘I don’t like Boris for this reason’ - who cares?
“We all need to put aside our differences and pull together, otherwise the vampires are going to eat us alive.”
The Labour Party declined to comment on Ms Birbalsingh’s comments.
