LABOUR MPs in Kent are coming under pressure to speak out against selection in a new campaign aimed at persuading the Government to abolish all the country’s remaining 164 grammar schools.

The campaign, launched this week, aims to persuade Labour to support a push to end selection and is being organised by CASE – the Campaign for State Education.

Education Secretary Charles Clarke has denied wanting to kill off grammars but says he wants to see a debate about the impact of selection on standards.

The CASE campaign will begin with a letter to all local Labour party constituencies urging them to back calls for selection to be scrapped. Local MPs will be pressed to publicly declare their opposition.

Former cabinet minister Frank Dobson, who is helping lead the campaign, said selection was educationally and socially divisive.

However, Damian Green, the Conservative education spokesman and Ashford MP, attacked the campaign and accused Mr Clarke of tacitly backing it.

He said: “There is no public demand to destroy grammar schools, just an ideological obsession among some Labour politicians and activists. In this context, Charles Clarke’s publication of an outdated OFSTED report on Kent to coincide with the campaign is a sinister move, suggesting tacit Government support for those who want to destroy grammar schools.”