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Braverman heckled for claiming councils failing children with ‘fashionable fads’
Suella Braverman

REFORM UK’s Suella Braverman was heckled at a Local Government Association conference in Bournemouth today after accusing councils of being “more keen to support the children of Gaza than the children of Grimsby” and neglecting white working-class pupils.

Some members of the cross-party audience interrupted her speech, while others walked out as she attacked local authorities.

Mrs Braverman, Reform’s education spokeswoman, said “system failure and neglect of white working-class families” over decades had left just 40 per cent of children from that background achieving a Grade 4 pass in GCSE maths and English.

She said councils had “betrayed” these communities by “promoting progressive causes” instead of “standards and rigour,” and claimed too many had backed “damaging transgender ideology” while making children “ashamed to feel British.”

Responding to the heckling, she said: “Local government plays a part. You can deny it, but the statistics show that our young people are being failed in many of our schools and I won’t stop standing up for them.”

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