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21st Jan 2022

Tories ‘threatened to scrap new school’ if MP backed Rashford school meal campaign

Danny Jones

Stay classy

In yet more sleaze and scandal, it has been revealed that Tory whips reportedly threatened to scrap a new school if a certain MP decided to back Marcus Rashford‘s wonderful free school meals campaign

The MP in question is the recently-defected Christian Wakeford, who walked across the aisle to join the Labour Party during an eventful round of PMQs on Wednesday.

Speaking on BBC North West Tonight and other news outlets on Thursday, the Bury South MP revealed that he was warned he would not receive adequate funding for the new school in the town of Radcliffe if he didn’t “vote in a particular way” on a certain issue(s).

Now, as per the Mirror, it is thought that at least one of the issues Wakeford was threatened over was Rashford’s long-running battle for free school meals – an issue he received an MBE for but which the conservatives made multiple attempts to resist.

Wakeford threatened over Rashford school meals vote

It isn’t the only alleged instance of blackmail, of course, as yesterday it was announced another senior Tory, William Wragg, accused the government of “pressures and intimidation” over concerns party members might be sizing up for a vote of no confidence in the prime minister.

The school in question would be the area’s first in nearly a decade and is considered desperately needed by local constituents. He went on to state: “how would you feel when holding back the ­regeneration of a town for a vote? It didn’t sit ­comfortably and that was when I was really starting to ­question my place at that time.”

The threats are thought to have been made by an as yet unidentified cabinet minister and, similarly, Hazel Grove MP Wragg said that other MPs had also claimed their constituencies would be “starved of cash” if they failed to fall into line.

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