TRADE unionists, progressives, academics, students and historians will come together in the heart of David Cameron’s constituency this weekend for the annual celebration of Levellers’ Day.

How appropriate that we will be debating and discussing education and democracy as this year’s theme in the immediate wake of an election which has ushered in another five years of unrelenting, vicious and ideological attacks on working-class people, the young, the old and the vulnerable.

As we consider the values, the objectives and the struggles of the English Levellers in 1649 and in particular their concerns for democracy, accountability and equality, it is sobering to see how our own hard-fought-for rights and liberties are being removed.

This government has set a course to fundamentally change the democratic structures of the country with a mandate from less than a quarter of the total eligible electorate. And with many working-class and young voters opting out of the election altogether, what does that mean for our future democracy?

The promised abolition of the Human Rights Act and the planned introduction of unrestricted state surveillance all points to a government hell-bent on clamping down on any popular opposition which does not conform with a conveniently vague and flexible notion of “British values.”

So now, with a third of our MPs privately educated, what does this tell us about the reality of social mobility and democracy in Cameron’s “blue-collar conservative” Britain? And how can it be that here in the fifth richest country in the world we are also placed at number four in the inequality rankings? Is the democratic will of the people best served when Parliament is still so overwhelmingly made up of white, privately educated men from well-off backgrounds?

Today on Levellers’ Day we will consider these questions and ask whether education can prove the key to democracy and to a better society. Can it really still be “the best weapon we have to change the world” as Nelson Mandela believed? Is education a great leveller in its own right?

Certainly education has the potential to develop an informed, inquisitive and questioning electorate who feel confident enough to participate and express their views. The huge challenge is to retain that democratising role for education in a climate of targets, marketisation and privatisation driven by political dogma.

There has been much talk of aspiration in recent days. Surely a free education is a fundamental human right, not an aspiration or something for the privileged few. But our debate must also consider what that education should look like and what it is for.

Teachers will in the future be asked to educate children in “British values,” a concept which has attracted both ridicule and wildly different interpretations. Strangely the national curriculum does not teach our children about the Levellers, and surely if we are looking for a great example of decent values we need look no further than this famous Levellers’ quote: “For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to lead as the greatest he.” These words from the 17th century resonate with us only too clearly in 2015.

• The 2015 Levellers’ debate will feature Professor Danny Dorling, Melissa Benn and Kevin Courtney. The chair is Paul Mackney. Levellers’ Day runs from from 10.30am-4.30pm in Burford, Oxfordshire. There will be a mix of history, political discussion and entertainment for all the family.
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