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Shabana Mahmood MP, Labour. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
Children in Birmingham face having their lives blighted and their futures harmed by the
Trojan horse allegations aimed at their schools, the Labour MP Shabana Mahmood told a
packed public meeting in the city on Thursday night.
Pupils attending the schools that were investigated for signs of Islamist extremism are
likely to face difficulties applying to universities and colleges because of the notoriety,
the MP for Birmingham Ladywood said at the launch event for the Putting Birmingham
School Kids First group held in Camp Hill.
"There will always be children in Birmingham living with that stigma, day in and day
out," Mahmood told the first mass meeting organised in reaction to reports that schools
and their boards of governors had been infiltrated by Islamist extremists.
Investigations by Ofsted and the Department for Education targeted five schools in the
inner city with largely Muslim pupils, placing them in special measures. Four of the
schools are academies and are likely to be handed over to new management by the
Department for Education early next month.
Birmingham politicians and parents
speak out against Trojan horse scandal
Labour MP Shabana Mahmood says pupils might face difficulties
later in life due to stigma attached to the schools they attended
Richard Adams
theguardian.com, Friday 27 June 201 4 00.42 BST
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A further investigation is being carried out by Peter Clarke, the former head of counter-
terrorism with the Metropolitan police.
"I really felt depressed and in despair, that it couldn't be right to talk about the
education of children, really young children, through the prism of national security,"
Mahmood said, noting that the investigations so far revealed no evidence of extremism.
"Any conversation about Trojan horse has to start with the proposition that kids in
Birmingham were being radicalised but which is simply not true and should be rejected,"
Mahmood said.
A parent from Oldknow academy, a primary school that was one of the five placed in
special measures, said children at the school had already suffered bullying as a result of
the controversy, with one child told the school was "where you learn how to make
bombs".
"These children have had their childhood memories taken away from them," she said.
Sir Tim Brighouse, a former head of education in Birmingham, addressed the meeting by
video, telling it that Birmingham was a city of immigrants who made themselves "into
Brummies".
"What you've achieved in schools in east Birmingham over the last 10 or 15 years is
nothing short of extraordinary," Brighouse said.
"What's happened in the last year is nothing short of tragedy. It's a series of accidents
that may have been brought about by people not doing their jobs when they should
have, and taking the trouble when tiny things started to go wrong, to alert each other to
the possibilities and talk things out.
"What's happened then is a wholly inappropriate response, tragically timed, from
agencies in London. The problem with people in London, they think they have the
answers to all problems, throughout the country."
There was a surprise intervention by the Daily Telegraph's political commentator Peter
Oborne, who addressed the mixed audience of 500.
"I think it is unacceptable that there are things that can be said publicly about Muslims
which can be said about no other communities and religions, and there is something sick
about that and it is something that does need to be fought," Oborne said to loud
applause.
The investigations were sparked by an anonymous letter now regarded as a
fabrication describing a plot to subvert schools in the city by extremists.
"It's a lie, as simple as that," Barry Henley, a Birmingham city councillor, said of the
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Trojan horse letter.
Henley said the media had described him as an "Islamic fanatic" for his role on the
council in approving local schools' religious curriculum, even though he was Jewish and a
governor of a Jewish faith school.
Azhar Qayyum, of the Muslim Association of Britain, told the meeting: "What other
religion in Britain would be subjected to this, on the basis of a flimsy piece of paper?"
Helen Salmon, whose five-year-old son, Ben, was at the meeting and was one of only two
white children in a year-one entry of 120 pupils, said the allegations were "absolute
nonsense".
"We can't trust a word Ofsted say when they are so politically motivated," she said.