Today, Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, has written to the Prime Minister about the hiring of Andrew Sabisky as an adviser.

The full text is as follows:

The Rt Hon Boris Johnson

House of Commons

London

SW1A 0AA

17 February 2020

Dear Prime Minister,

The National Education Union is seriously concerned that that you have appointed a policy adviser, Mr Andrew Sabisky, who has expressed his belief in:

  • The sterilisation of girls, by legally enforcing the uptake of long-term contraception, in order to avoid the creation of a ‘permanent underclass’; 
  • The intellectual inferiority of black people;
  • The value of supplying mind-enhancing drugs to school students;
  • The insignificance of Female Genital Mutilation as a risk to girls.

As an education union representing over 400,000 members working in schools, colleges and other educational settings across the UK and in all phases of education, we are deeply alarmed by the re-emergence of age-old prejudices, and by the refusal of your spokesperson to dissociate you from them. If they are seen to be tolerated at the highest political level in our country, they will do great harm to the education and well-being of students in British schools.

We request you, as someone who has recently expressed the intention to govern on the basis of science not prejudice, to make clear that views like Mr Sabisky’s play no part in the thinking of government, and that you will end his period of employment forthwith.

Yours sincerely

Dr Mary Bousted

Joint General Secretary

ENDS

2020-019-NEU