Ukraine faces decisive months ahead as key allies gear up for crunch elections. While early presidential campaigning in the US and a looming general election in Poland will grab the international headlines, a snap election in Slovakia on 30 September may prove every bit as consequential. 

With Robert Fico — Slovakia’s former prime minister and one of the West’s most outspoken critics of the Ukrainian war effort — poised to win the vote, a change of government in Bratislava could have a profound effect on EU policymaking. Fico has promised that if his party makes it into government “we will not send a single bullet to Ukraine,” proudly proclaiming that “I allow myself to have a different opinion to that of the United States” on the war.  

Fico has also claimed on the campaign trail that “war always comes from the West and peace from the East,” and that “what is happening today is unnecessary killing, it is the emptying of warehouses to force countries to buy more American weapons.” Such statements have resulted in him being blacklisted by Kyiv as a spreader of Russian propaganda.  

Yet the former prime minister spearheads a new brand of Left-wing, anti-American populism that has become a powerful force in Central Europe since the war began. Perceptions that “the Americans occupy us” — as one MP in Fico’s Smer party evocatively put it — are shared with a similar groundswell of anti-Western opinion in the neighbouring Czech Republic.  

Yet Smer has been handed a chance to gain power thanks to the chaos which has engulfed Slovakia’s pro-EU, pro-Western forces. Personal grievances coupled with serious policy errors tore apart a four-party coalition formed after elections in 2020, leaving Fico to capitalise on heightened mistrust in establishment politics. Smer is expected to become the nation’s largest party after this month’s election, with an anticipated 20% of the vote.  

Whatever the specific makeup of the new government, if Smer is the largest party it will likely pursue a foreign policy similar to that of Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary. A halt to until-now generous Slovak arms shipments to Ukraine is Fico’s central electoral pledge, while the arrival on the scene of another Orbán-style government prepared to obstruct EU aid efforts for Ukraine would create a serious headache. That is particularly the case as Brussels struggles to win support for both short and long-term war funding commitments. 

Victory for Fico would also amplify Orbán’s scepticism about the overall Western narrative on Ukraine — a scepticism which the Hungarian Prime Minister recently conveyed to Western conservatives during an interview with Tucker Carlson. Orbán portrayed Ukraine’s attempts to win back the territories taken by Russia as ultimately hopeless and claimed that Donald Trump’s promise to end the war quickly makes him “the man who can save the Western world”. 

Like Trump in America and Orbán in Europe, Fico is hated with a passion by establishment forces. But in Slovakia, the pro-Western establishment itself has become so mistrusted that power may soon pass to a man intent on shattering what’s left of European unity on Ukraine. 

News that the National Education Union (NEU) is about to expand its membership to school support staff should concern everyone who cares about the education of British children. The union currently adheres to an agreement made in 2017, to not allow membership to the 500,000 support staff who may be members of other unions. If this changes, then headteachers could be faced with everyone from teachers to school secretaries walking out due to disputes over pay.

The election of Daniel Kebede as general secretary of the NEU in 2023 was always going to increase political activism by the nation’s largest teaching union. Kebede makes his predecessors, Corbynites Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, look like moderates. For those watching from the chalkface, the trajectory has been clear: the NEU is no longer merely a professional body representing the modern-day Mr Chips. Instead, it is a vehicle for an abrasive brand of ideological activism. This latest move is, potentially, the clearest statement so far that British schools are set for a difficult and disrupted 2026.

Kebede is relentless in his desire to obtain higher salaries for NEU members. He has referred to proposed pay increases which amount to 17% over the course of this parliament as, effectively, a pay cut. Worse, he claims that “Austerity Labour is paving the way for a Reform government.” It is a telling statement, suggesting that the NEU wants to widen its membership base for political reasons rather than to ensure school dinner ladies have better working conditions.

If the NEU succeeds in unionising the majority of a school’s workforce, from the department heads to the teaching assistants, the office staff to the site managers, it will gain the power to flick a switch and shut the school down entirely. Currently, if teachers strike, schools often manage to stay open for vulnerable children or exam cohorts using support staff and teachers who are members of other, much smaller unions. By swallowing these roles into the NEU’s radical orbit, Kebede ensures that any industrial action becomes a total blockade.

Imagine the damage that could be done if support staff and the majority of teachers walk out during the summer examination season. Schools can invigilate GCSEs and A-levels without a collection of geography or history teachers, but they shut down immediately if there are no security staff, IT support or electricians on site.

On the surface, this move is pitched as “sector-wide solidarity”, but really it’s a power grab. It is also a declaration of war within the trade union movement. By encroaching on the territory of unions such as GMB and Unison, which traditionally represent support staff, the NEU is fracturing the Trades Union Congress. It will be able to operate free of wider, collective responsibility.

Kebede has written to the union’s members that these proposed changes are necessary in order to “mount a successful defence of education”, but the reality is that any future action will be an assault on the learning experience of children, that overlooked constituency with no say in their future. If recent history has shown us anything about disputes involving schools, it is that any disruption to teaching has lasting and hugely damaging consequences. For the children, yes, but also for the society they go on to shape.

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David James is deputy head at a leading independent school in London, and also teaches at a local state school.

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