A UK Conservative Party “in attack mode” under new leader Kemi Badenoch could spell danger for universities, with the depleted opposition party being urged to avoid rejecting government interventions on higher education funding if purely for political point scoring.
During her leadership campaign, the MP for North West Essex courted the Tory membership by claiming – with little evidence – that Conservative students are marked down by university lecturers because of their views.
Known as an “anti-woke warrior”, she has previously taken aim at “pointless and costly” degrees and claimed that “some universities spend more time indoctrinating social attitudes instead of teaching lifelong skills or how to solve problems”.
Among her first acts in post, Ms Badenoch appointed Laura Trott as shadow education minister and Alan Mak as shadow science and technology minister.
“It’s early days but, since Badenoch has clearly decided to avoid committing to any policies of her own for a while, she and her colleagues will spend most of their time in attack mode, looking for any bruises to punch,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.
Ms Trott’s first action as shadow education secretary was to respond to Bridget Phillipson’s announcement that English university fees will be rising with inflation.
While not overtly opposing the move, she accused Labour of “declaring war” on students, making them “suffer at a time when they can least afford it”.
Nick Hillman, once an adviser to former Conservative universities minister Lord Willetts, said opposition parties had form in attempting to block increasing fees.
“As we saw with Michael Howard on the Tory side and Jeremy Corbyn on the Labour side, the temptation when out of office is to go down the rabbit hole of opposing tuition fees – and it takes a long time to find the exit,” he said.
“I urge the new shadow education team to take their time to listen to universities and to visit lots of them before deciding what their policy platform should be.”
The government has signalled that the fee rise will precede major reforms in the country’s higher education system, with a focus on areas such as widening access and improving standards.
Professor Bale said this would “doubtless produce suggestions that will provide the Tories with plenty of ammunition, although they will have to put up with being asked what they would do instead”.
“Given the need to curry favour with the right-wing media – and Badenoch’s reputation as a zealous culture warrior – I doubt we’ve seen the end of attacks by the Conservatives on no-platforming and ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees either.”
The first Conservative leader since the degreeless Iain Duncan Smith not to be educated at Oxbridge, Ms Badenoch attended the University of Sussex and Birkbeck, University of London.
An unauthorised biography claimed Sussex’s famed left-wing campus culture had “radicalised” Ms Badenoch in the other direction, and she later described student activists as a “spoiled, entitled, privileged metropolitan elite-in-training”.
Mr Hillman, now director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), said it had been “depressing” to see the attacks on universities during the Tory leadership campaign, but Ms Badenoch was “far from the worst on this and, indeed, she seemed to have toned down her language somewhat since she last stood to become Tory leader in 2022”.
“How Tories judge important institutions like universities will be a key test of whether they’ve changed enough to win again,” he added. “You can’t win elections hating the institutions that keep the country going, whether by delivering growth, training nurses or supporting local museums.”
