The weaponisation of English language education: defunding and gatekeeping

Image: FE Week, 18 February 2026

When I took part in a panel discussion last week with the East Midlands Strategic Migration Partnership in Nottingham, I remarked that I seem to have spent half my time lately responding to consultations about retrenching and weaponising ESOL.

I had just submitted NATECLA's response to the Home Office 'Earned Settlement' consultation, and was reflecting on the open letter to Greater Lincolnshire Mayor Andrea Jenkyns we'd drafted a couple of weeks earlier condemning her plan to defund all adult ESOL provision (now set to go ahead from 2027-28).

Viewing the landscape in England from outside, it's just extraordinary that one of its strategic authorities would make a conscious decision to stop funding an entire curriculum area - just because the people accessing it happen to speak other languages and because the Mayor thinks only "natives" deserve access to adult education.

It's blatant racism, yet many in the sector are still reticent about calling it out; in some cases that might be because they are fearful of further repercussions (given Reform's track record of Trump-esque vindictiveness, I can understand why ASF contract holders in Greater Lincs might be nervous about being too gobby!). Yet this is an existential crisis for those of us who appreciate and value how much language education empowers individuals and enriches communities. One of my other observations at last week's event was that we need to treat this as a wake-up call for the sector, and that we need to rebuild the case for ESOL from the bottom-up.

Language is never neutral, it's always political and it's always about empowering or oppressing people: whether it's the unionist old guard in the north of Ireland fighting to block bilingual (English/Gaeilge) signage at Belfast's main railway station; the lack of a coherent ESOL strategy anywhere on these islands (aside from Wales and a couple of English strategic authorities); or the British government ramping up language barriers for migrants - having squeezed ESOL provision (and adult education more generally) throughout the past two decades.

There was a glimmer of more positive rhetoric earlier this month when Keir Starmer remarked that "Everyone who comes here, who lives here, should have an opportunity to learn English". It was swiftly followed by the customary finger-pointing about this being an "expectation", and of course without any detail about how the chronic waiting lists and gaps in ESOL provision and progression routes might be addressed.

The situation in Lincolnshire is the outworking of this grotesque weaponising of language education as something that's 'unaffordable' whilst also being something migrants must partake in if they wish to be allowed to stay. I first noticed this shift in the late 2000s, after automatic fee remission for ESOL had been removed by the Brown government and when ESOL Skills for Life qualifications began to be accepted for Settlement/Citizenship purposes; the profile of providers and learners shifted markedly, as did concerns about potential malpractice (when people's immigration status depended on gaining a qualification...).

That pressure (at least within funded ESOL provision) abated when the Home Office stopped accepting qualifications that weren't on its own Secure English Language Tests (SELT) list; yet the framing of language tests/levels as primarily a gatekeeping device has persisted, and is set to be embedded still further as the British government continues on its migrant-bashing and Reform-appeasing crusade.

Image: United Against Racism Derry and North West

As someone who believes "the UK" as a political/colonial project is approaching its death knells, it would be understandable if I saw England's descent down a far-right rabbit hole as an opportunity to advance the case for Irish unity and Scottish/Welsh independence. Maybe it does help - a little?

But actually these toxic discourses have a spill-over effect, as we now see the Irish government planning to lengthen the waiting times for family reunification and talking up tropes about migrants coming over the border from the north. Jim Ratcliffe's appalling remarks about "colonisation" were heard on this island as loudly as they were on the one he was referring to, and came from an atmosphere where he felt sufficiently emboldened to make them.

Ultimately it's in no one's interests for far-right scapegoating and othering to take hold, wherever and from whomever it originates.