{"id":701136,"date":"2026-01-17T02:11:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/701136\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T02:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:11:18","slug":"cancellation-of-mps-visit-to-bristol-school-unacceptable-says-phillipson-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/701136\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancellation of MP\u2019s visit to Bristol school \u2018unacceptable\u2019, says Phillipson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damien Egan was reportedly prevented from visiting Bristol Brunel Academy in his Bristol North East constituency after intervention from pro-Palestinian activists.<\/p>\n

Bridget Phillipson said: \u201cWhat happened to my colleague Damien Egan is shocking and completely unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Jewish MP\u2019s visit to a school in his own constituency was stopped from going ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe in no doubt; no MP should ever be barred from doing their job because of their faith or background.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur schools must be places of safety and inclusion \u2013 not exclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy department has been in direct contact with Ofsted and I welcome their urgent inspection and look forward to their findings, I will not rule out further action.\u201d<\/p>\n

The schools watchdog inspected the school on Thursday after reports of the visit being cancelled.<\/p>\n

\"DamienDamien Egan (Andrew Matthews\/PA)<\/p>\n

Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver said in a statement: \u201cI was concerned to learn that a school may have been intimidated into cancelling a visit from their local MP.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am troubled by the message this sends to children \u2013 especially children from the Jewish community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose of us privileged enough to be working in education have a professional and moral duty to stand against discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

After considering the evidence, inspectors concluded an inspection was warranted and were at the school on Thursday, Sir Martyn said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Cabot Learning Federation, which runs the school, said: \u201cWe take our responsibilities to educate young people about British values extremely seriously, which is why we invited Mr Egan to speak to our students in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst we took the decision to postpone the visit due to concerns about student safety and the disruption to their education from the planned protest, a date for the rescheduled visit had already been confirmed by Mr Egan\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was long before any of the most recent concerns were raised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BristolA general view of Bristol Brunel Academy(Zoe Head-Thomas\/PA)<\/p>\n

Speaking at Prime Minister\u2019s Questions on Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer said the case was \u201cvery serious, very concerning\u201d and added that all MPs \u201cshould be able to visit anywhere in their constituency, schools or other places, without fear of antisemitism\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister added on Wednesday: \u201cWe\u2019re providing more funding for security and support we\u2019re putting in across the country, and we will be holding those to account who have prevented this visit to this school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Communities Secretary Steve Reed mentioned the cancellation while appearing at the Jewish Labour Movement conference on Sunday, describing it as \u201can absolute outrage\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sir Martyn said he is grateful to the school for its openness in engaging with Ofsted inspectors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damien Egan was reportedly prevented from visiting Bristol Brunel Academy in his Bristol North East constituency after intervention…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-701136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115908017688345268","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}