I AM a teacher. I am also a veteran. I served in the British Army operationally in Northern Ireland. I have witnessed first-hand the loss, grief and tragedy that comes from violent conflict.

The devastation in Ukraine is on a far greater scale. We should be working towards a resolution of the conflict, towards peace. Negotiations are preferable to more killing.

We need a negotiated peace deal to end the war. A war that has killed, amputated, blinded and traumatised up to a million battle casualties on either side. A war that is locked in a deadly stalemate.

Billions of pounds of weaponry pouring into Ukraine will not help bring the war to an end. It will merely prolong the war without ever being sufficient to actually win it. We will see more mass casualties, while deferring the much-needed and inevitable peace talks that many Ukrainian people desire themselves.

More money for tanks and bombs, but a massive 40 per cent cut for overseas aid. Cuts in support for disabled people. Cuts in public spending.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times recently lauded the £400,000 salary for Britain’s “new national armaments director.” This cannot be justified.

We are an education union. We are not here to advocate for the arms industry or its CEOs. We must take a stand against the diversion of public money from education, public services, and disabled people’s PIP support in order to fuel more militarism.

Our workplaces should be havens of peace, where we encourage our students to respect each other, resolve their differences with reason and reject the use of violence. We should be teaching our students about the dark history of past wars and genocides. 

How can we do that in the classroom, while at the same time in the wider world, we are allowing, or even encouraging world leaders to escalate their conflicts with more violence and murder?

Trump and Putin are both eagerly anticipating the carve-up of Ukraine’s mineral resources. Neither of them cares one tiny little bit about the people of Ukraine. They should keep out of Ukraine and keep their hands off the country’s land and resources. We extend our full solidarity with trade unionists and workers in Ukraine, facing this exploitation of their country.

We cannot give the government the green light to pour more public money into weapons and war. We must take a clear stance for peace against war, for negotiations over escalation, and for spending money on public services and overseas aid, not militarism.

So long as this government prioritises military spending while cutting public services and welfare, all of the problems that we face in education, the recruitment and workload crises, under-funding and lack of wrap-around care for our most vulnerable children will only get worse.

Peace and negotiations are not only the right thing for Ukraine. As educators, we must take a moral stand for peace and oppose the drive to war everywhere.

While our priority must be to campaign and if need be, take national strike action in defence of proper funding for the education system, this argument is not just about our jobs and the livelihoods of our students, although that should be case enough. It is also about the future of our public services and the kind of country we live in, one that cares for its citizens or caters to the arms companies. So let’s get out there and win that argument in our workplaces and communities.

Steve Handford is member of Northumberland NEU.

All NEU members who oppose Starmer’s drive to war and defending the right to protest are invited to join the Stop The War Coalition’s Welfare Not Warfare fringe meeting tonight at 7.30pm in the Crown Hotel, HG1.