Only 22 years old, Marcus Rashford MBE has been a shining gem among the rough in 2020, where the Coronavirus has ground the world to a halt and killed over a million people. This is thanks to his tireless efforts of campaigning to make sure that vulnerable kids do not go hungry in the harsh conditions, recession and pandemic they find themselves in, through no fault of their own. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Tory government, on the other hand, seem to be arguing the negative here.
Rashford’s crusade began in the backdrop of a nation-wide lockdown, where everyone was told to stay in doors for months on end. While jobs were furloughed and wages paid by the government at 80% of their wage, offices, shops and schools were closed, with only essential work continuing. This was, unsurprisingly, unsustainable for many families that rely upon community support, in a time where a contagion was threatening that community.
Rashford is a Manchester United forward by profession, but he proved that he was much more than that too, as he raised awareness for the pressing issue of children no longer having free school meals. He used to be a recipient of them when he was younger, so he knows better than most how important they can be for a child. For months, Rashford has worked with the FareShare charity to supply meals to kids who were going without – first in the Manchester area, and then further across the country, even forcing the government to u-turn on their initial decision not to support free school meals (although, it should be noted, a Boris Johnson government u-turn is not that unsurprising, these days).
The campaign has only picked up steam, though, all thanks to Marcus Rashford and with no thanks to the Tory government who should be helping. In October 2020, the Conservative party whipped their members to vote down a bill ensuring free school meals for hungry and vulnerable kids to be covered until April 2021 – about the time when a vaccine is hoped to be available. This callous decision has meant that those affected by Covid-19, especially in local lockdowns, will be left to fend for themselves as jobs are lost and support is stretched. But, Rashford has built a movement and refuses to stop. Throughout the 22nd and 23rd of October (the date of writing), hundreds of local councils, businesses and foodbanks have made themselves known to him – contacting him directly or being pointed out to him by others – to create a network of nationwide support for those struggling. It is a sight for sore eyes, to see people from Cornwall to the Hull and everywhere in between offering up their charity.
But, it shouldn’t be this way. People are filling in the gaps of government just to make sure children – the future – don’t go hungry. I wish that Tories across the land are embarrassed, humiliated, humbled by this, but I sincerely doubt it. Tories would need to be able to feel those emotions, first off, and few have shown that they really can, certainly in the top echelon of government. But more than this, it is probably what they want, although they will never admit it.
The right-wing, conservative, capitalist economic and welfare ideology has always been to let the market decide. The local businesses should see a gap in the market and fill it with their own ingenuity and invention, so they can profit, grow, and rinse and repeat. Tory government has never been about welfare spending, so of course they are allergic to preventing children from starving, but the reaction suits them perfectly. It has proved to them that there was a market decision out there, and they need not have bothered. The only response that would have been unsatisfying to them was to let children literally starve, to prove that they were the only people that could help, but that is unconscionable.
So what will happen next? Probably nothing, I think. Tory government can give lip service to Rashford’s good efforts for so long, but now a bill has been rejected in parliament, I expect that is that. it is not a dozen men making a decision – it is over three hundred locally elected members of parliament, meant to represent their constituencies, who have decided not to fund free school meals for vulnerable children. There will probably be a few photo opportunities from Tory MPs helping out cooking and feeding for kids, but nothing near the power they could have to stop the crisis in child poverty. Rashford and charities helping the movement he has championed will continue to work behind the scenes, but it will be gone from the media sphere in two weeks, and with it any real accountability. The nail in the coffin came in December of last year, when Tory MPs were voted into Parliament en masse.
I hope that there is another u-turn, a vote in parliament to show that public pressure has broken the Tory whip, and the decision is overturned to do the least to help kids eat. But again, I doubt it. A vote has just been cast, there is no real precedent to be re-done within a few weeks. We learned that from Brexit. Or rather, are learning, and will learn it when we really leave the EU.
One Geo Under A Groove 