A Conservative MP has said anyone using the term “white privilege” should be reported to the government’s counter-terror programme, and that teachers who criticise the Conservative party should be sacked. Jonathan Gullis told a fringe meeting during the party’s conference in Manchester last week that anyone using the phrase should be referred to the government’s Prevent programme, which is used to track potential terrorists. According to a recording obtained by the Independent, he told activists: “The term white privilege – very quickly – is an extremist term, it should be reported to Prevent, because it is an extremist ideology.
“It’s racist to actually suggest everyone who’s white somehow is riddled with privilege.” Gullis, who is a former member of the parliamentary education select committee, was speaking at an event organised by the Conservative Friends of Education group. He added: “I hope [using the term white privilege] will be reported, I hope that will be looked into, and any teacher who’s perpetuated it in the classroom ultimately should face a disciplinary hearing at the very least.” The Prevent programme was set up in 2006 to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism, and to clamp down on radicalisation. During the same event, the 31-year-old MP said that teachers should be “sacked” if they criticise the Conservatives. He was elected to the Commons in 2019 for Stoke-on-Trent North. “The other way we can stop the cancel culture is by actually saying to the woke left lecturers and the woke left teachers – who seem to be becoming more and more apparent – is that ultimately, what’s going to happen if you are going to push your ideology in the classroom there are going to be consequences for you,” he said. “For some reason, if a Labour party member wants to stand up in front of the classroom and say how bad and evil the Tories are, then the headteacher has to take some kind of sympathetic view to that. “It’s absolutely disgusting, we need to start sacking people who are pushing their political ideology.” The Conservative party has been contacted for comment.