UK school nixed Labour MP’s civics talk, after outcry over his support for Israel |
A British member of parliament was disinvited last fall, at least temporarily, from a local school where he’d planned to give a talk about democracy, after teachers planned a protest over his support for Israel.
The school, Bristol Brunel Academy, said that the talk by Labour MP Damien Egan, who represents the school’s Bristol North East constituency, was merely postponed, and that a future date has already been set.
Egan, who is Jewish and is married to an Israeli man who served in the Israel Defense Forces, is vice chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). LFI advocates a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and advocated for the return of those abducted from Israel and held hostage by Palestinian terror groups in Gaza following the Hamas-led assault of October 7, 2023.
The 2025 incident came to light this week, after UK Communities Secretary Steve Reed told the Jewish News that a “Jewish colleague” of his had been barred from a local school “in case his presence inflames the teachers.”
Reed called the incident “an absolute outrage,” and said those responsible “will be called in, and they will be held to account for doing that, because you cannot have people with those kinds of attitudes teaching our children.”
A spokesman for the school, in a statement carried by several British outlets, confirmed: “Damien Egan MP – as a high-achieving alumnus of the [Cabot Learning........