Now Lucy Connolly’s daughter is being punished for her mum’s tweet

Lucy Connolly addressed members of Reform UK over lunch in Thurrock, Essex, last weekend. What struck me while listening to her is that her imprisonment for a vile, misjudged social-media post, sent in the immediate aftermath of the Southport stabbings last year, was only one small part of her punishment. Having been released after serving more than 12 months behind bars, Lucy and her family are still being punished. Shockingly, it has now emerged that her 13-year-old daughter has been denied a school place, apparently for no other reason than her mother’s reputation.

Despite soon deleting the post she sent in the heat of the moment back in July 2024, when she first heard that three young girls had been slaughtered at a dance class, Connolly received a 31-month prison sentence for inciting racial hatred, serving 72 days on remand before her trial, and then 10 months in HMP Peterborough. This meant she missed over a year of her young daughter, Edie’s, life, including her birthday, Christmas, a school sports day and several parents’ evenings. Worse, she missed the daily interactions with her child – from sharing a joke to being there to offer reassurance or a hug.

Right from the moment she was arrested in July last year, amid the Labour government’s harsh crackdown on speech after Southport, Connolly was treated differently. Judges usually take into consideration mitigating factors, like a woman’s role as primary carer for her children, the impact of imprisonment on the convict’s dependents, and the circumstances of their offence. Yet none of these seemed to be taken into account when it came to Connolly. She was not only denied bail ahead of her trial, after she was found guilty, she was also given what is believed to be the longest-ever prison sentence for a social-media post.

Likewise, every application she made for day release from prison was rejected, despite such requests usually being granted automatically to inmates who are well behaved, have children or are nearing the end of their sentence. All this meant that Connolly was not the only one to suffer. Her now-teenage daughter was punished too, by being denied the presence of her mother.

Lucy says her probation officer was furious that her request for day release was refused. ‘The probation officer knew from Edie’s teachers that she was suffering’, explained Connolly. ‘Edie, like most teenagers, is not good at talking about her emotions, so anger became her default. She got really argumentative with the teachers and started getting suspended. She’d never been suspended before.’

It is understandable, then, that with Connolly now back home, finding a new school to give her daughter a fresh start was a priority. This seemed to have been finally arranged last month. After completing a successful trial period, Edie was excited to join her new school. But then, out of the blue, Lucy learnt that the new school would not be offering her daughter a place, after all. ‘I got a call from Edie’s current school saying the new school had withdrawn her place because, in a nutshell, it seems likely they found out who I was’, Connolly told the Daily Mail: ‘They said that racism doesn’t go down well in their school, and if the other parents found out who Edie’s parents were, there might be some kind of ruckus.’

To be clear, other than one heated social-media post, there is little evidence that Lucy Connolly is racist. As a child-minder, she cared for infants of all races and nationalities, often forging close relationships with their parents. But even if this were not the case, no child should be denied a school place because teachers disagree with their parents’ views. The very suggestion is appalling. A mark of a civilised society is that we do not hold children accountable for the beliefs of their parents, and the right to an education is not made contingent upon political agreement. Lucy says her daughter spent the following weekend ‘crying in her room’. While all head teachers may claim their schools are ‘progressive’ and ‘child-centred’, this is a cruel way to treat a child.

But Edie is not the only child to be punished by schools for either their parents’ or their own views. In July, Bilton School in Warwickshire sent 12-year-old Courtney Wright home for wearing a Union Jack dress on ‘culture celebration day’. Courtney was stopped from giving the speech she had planned, and her father was called to take her home from school before lessons had finished.

Elsewhere, it has emerged that teachers at Orien Education, a school chain in England, have been informing children that Reform UK is a far-right party, with some supporters possessing ‘extremist views’. Yet, if opinion polls are to be believed, many of the children made to sit through this lesson will know that their own parents plan to vote Reform come the next election. Teachers are effectively telling pupils that their parents hold morally dubious views.

Schools should keep politics out of the classroom. Education should be about transmitting knowledge, not cultivating particular opinions. Some teachers seem to need reminding that driving a wedge between children and their parents is not in anyone’s best interests. And punishing children for the perceived sins of their parents is cruel and immoral.

Joanna Williams is a spiked columnist and author of How Woke Won. Follow her on Substack: cieo.substack.com.