UK's Labour Party wants to get rid of its 'public schools'

The United Kingdom's Labour Party, which governed the nation between 1997 and 2010 and which is now the official opposition, plans to abolish Britain's famed "public schools" if it wins the next general election and is returned to power.

Activists voted to include such a pledge in the party's manifesto when they met during the Labour Party's annual conference in Brighton on Sunday. The party says it will "integrate all private schools into the state sector" by withdrawing their charitable status, ending tax exemptions, and drawing a line under public subsidies.

Angela Rayner, Labour's education spokesperson, said the party wants to make "the whole education system fairer through the integration of private schools".

Currently, a high proportion of university students have attended fee-paying schools. Labour says it will also attempt to bring about the end of private schools by mandating that no more than 7 percent of universities' student population can have attended private schools, effectively removing their competitive edge by realigning them with state schools in terms of their effectiveness in getting grads into top universities.

Labour will also take control of "endowments, investments and properties held by private schools", which currently educate around 600,000 people a year in the UK, and ensure those resources are redistributed "democratically and fairly across the country's educational institutions", the Financial Times reported.

The paper said a senior Labour Party official confirmed party leader Jeremy Corbyn plans to abide by the decision made at the party conference.

Rayner said: "This is a huge step forward in dismantling the privilege of a tiny, Eton-educated elite who are running our country into the ground. Every child deserves a world-class education, not only those who are able pay for it, and I'll be proud to campaign on this manifesto pledge at the next election."

The BBC reported that the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, an association of the head teachers of 283 independent schools, has promised that Labour's plans will be "tested in the courts for years to come".

The Independent Schools Council added that parents would be "rightly worried" about Labour's plans, and said the left-wing party was putting politics ahead of the interests of children. It said the proposal may also be in contravention of the European Convention of Human Rights.

"The move is an attack on the rights and freedoms of parents to make choices over the education of their children," said Julie Robinson, the council's chief executive.

The Independent newspaper said the aspiration to "integrate" public schools into the state sector is a major policy shift and would require additional government money, likely in the form of extra taxes, even if a future Labour government is able to wrest assets from the UK's public schools.

But Holly Rigby, from the Abolish Eton campaign, welcomed Labour's stance.

She told The Guardian newspaper: "This is a really positive moment for the Labour Party … It's a really radical commitment as well … This is a really big victory for the left."