Leon Emirali: Labour has robbed Middlesbrough of a chance to change its future

Leon Emirali was a senior aide to Steve Barclay between 2019-2020. He is the founder of NostradaAI

Labour has formally decided to block Eton College’s goal of bringing its expertise and millions to Middlesbrough, England’s poorest town or city. The world’s most famous school wanted to help Teesside by creating 6th form college for the brightest kids from deprived families, improving our sub-standard A level grades and fast tracking kids to the very best universities.  This is one of the most depressing political decisions I’ve seen.

Oldham and Dudley are getting their Eton 6th form colleges. Good for them. Their young people now have a golden opportunity and standards across the board will be raised. Those towns do have challenges but Middlesbrough has by far the biggest need, so why did Bridget Phillipson say yes to Oldham and Dudley and no to Middlesbrough?

You do not need to be a political expert to see what has happened here, everyone here knows all about it: far left MP Andy McDonald was desperate for the plan not to go ahead, he hates Eton and his blood pressure rises every time he hears that four letter word. He campaigned against it, citing elitism, privilege and other claptrap. He even recruited some biased, left leaning, 6th form heads the area to agree with him that our poorest kids didn’t need Eton’s expertise and cash.

Of course those local 6th forms heads were acting only out of self interest. They certainly didn’t want a new rival, would Sainsbury’s want a Tesco opening next door? Clearly Sainsbury’s don’t want that and will campaign against it with all kinds of spurious explanations of why it’s a bad idea. But new facilities and competition are always good news for the customer, and in this case the customer was Teesside’s deprived kids with brains and talent.

The most frustrating thing for me is that Middlesbrough was Eton’s favourite location. They saw what many in Westminster refuse to see. They saw huge pools of talent in Teesside and Hartlepool. They saw bright kids in Redcar, Stockton and Billingham who could go far if someone simply set their sights high enough. And Eton was offering exactly that. 480 free places for the most able students across our 500,000 population. With a special focus on recruiting the poorest children in the region. That was the point of the college, not to boost middle class kids but to raise up the youngsters who normally go unseen.

I spent many months working with Eton on this and school head Simon Henderson in particular. Simon is awesome, there’s no snobbery or attitude, only pragmatism and a drive to do some good. Simon understood Middlesbrough’s challenges and knew what a high performing sixth form could do in a town that has been held down by low expectations and bad politicians.

We also had the perfect site for the college and as the elected mayor I made sure it was legally ring-fenced for them, right in the middle of the town’s biggest regeneration zone. Next to new education facilities, tech businesses, the historic dock and only a few steps from the main train station. That spot is crying out for money and energy and the college would have acted like a magnet, pulling investment and energy to and otherwise moribund district – the Eton 6th form would have signalled that central Middlesbrough was turning a corner.

And Eton were willing to put millions of their own money into it. They have been attacked endlessly by Labour in recent years. VAT, rates, political digs, the lot. But even after that political and financial assault they still wanted to invest in working-class kids here.

Oldham and Dudley will now enjoy the benefits. Middlesbrough will not. And the real losers are the young people from the poorest families who had the ability but not the connections. They deserved something better than this tired class war.

If Labour really cared about levelling up, this would have been a yes. They chose no. And our region will feel that loss for a long time.