“The money for increased military spending has to come from somewhere, and it’s not coming from taxing the rich is it? It’s coming from cuts to Education, to the NHS, to welfare for the disabled and pensioners.”
Louise Regan, National Education Union
At the TUC Congress 2025, Louise Regan, National Education Union, spoke in favour of the motion “Wages not Weapons” which reaffirmed the union movement’s commitment to peace and against militarisation, withdrawing support for increases in military spending. You can read an edited version of her speech published below:
Our public services have been decimated for over a decade, we have crumbling schools, larger class sizes fewer teachers and teaching assistants due to funding cuts which means that many children with additional learning needs are not getting the help they need.
In Wales, where I teach, the government has lofty expectations for a new ‘innovative” curriculum and ALN bill but they won’t produce any money to drive those initiatives. Well innovation costs! It costs in terms of training and valuing the professionals that are expected to drive those initiatives.
GDP on education is currently 3.9% which has fallen from 5.5% and the government wants to increase the defence budget to 5% of GDP. Clearly, the money for increased military spending has to come from somewhere, and it’s not coming from taxing the rich is it? It’s coming from cuts to Education, to the NHS, to welfare for the disabled and pensioners
Congress, these priorities are all wrong! The money that is being used to increase military spending should be spent funding additional learning needs in schools, it should be used to fix our school buildings and to roll out free school meals for all our children. In Wales we do have Free school meals for primary pupils but hunger doesn’t stop after primary school! Children of all ages come to school hungry and, of course in England, not even primary pupils have free school meals in most areas.
Between October 2023 and September 2024, 15 shipments of F35 fighter jet parts were transported from RAF Marham directly to Nevatim Airbase in Israel. These parts are used on jets that have dropped bombs killing tens of thousands of civilians.
Congress, we and most of the UK public are horrified that our country is providing weapons to slaughter innocent children in Gaza!
Well over 60,000 Palestinians, including nearly 20,000 children have now been killed in Gaza. The sickening images and videos that we’ve all witnessed, over the last 2 years, of Palestinian suffering is now compounded by scenes of children crying for food while being deliberately starved by Israel. I’ve heard many disgusting comments from Israeli spokespersons but perhaps the most chilling is the recent declaration from Netanyahu that Israel “has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas”, and we all know that by Hamas, he means every Palestinian, whether men, women and children! He intends to slaughter them all!
Of course, Netanyahu has been encouraged by Donald Trump who urged him to reject a partial ceasefire deal with Hamas and continue the war in Gaza with “full force… That these 2 unconscionable men have such power in the world today is utterly terrifying.
Yesterday, Netanyahu issued a video statement – he said “to the residents of Gaza, take this opportunity and listen to me carefully: you have been warned – get out of there.
There is Gaza, there is their home, their land and we all know that Palestinians have pledged to die rather than leave but the time is past when it is even safe for them to leave any more. There is nowhere for them to go!
As socialists we must continue to everything we can stop the slaughter of Palestinians, and indeed to stop all wars! We must advocate for peace not war and for money to be spent on our public services not on weapons.
Please support this important motion.
- Louise Regan is an executive member of the National Education Union (NEU). You can follow her on Twitter/X here.
- You can read more about the motion from the UCU, which submitted the motion to TUC conference, here.
