A lot has happened since last term.

The Tories have finally been booted out after 14 years of attacks on young people and the working class.

But Labour has wasted no time showing it has nothing to offer the millions of people in Britain who are desperate for something better.

A new Labour government did nothing to prevent racist riots stoking fear and division this summer.

While MPs holidayed on their £90k salaries, the job of routing far-right violence fell to thousands of anti-racist protestors in cities and towns across the UK.

But this government will only foster more racist scapegoating and division. None of the pro-capitalist parties – including the Labour government – have anything positive to offer, because they all stand for a capitalist system that puts the profits of a super-rich few before everything else.

They all want to divide us – with racism, sexism, LGBTQ+phobia and anything else they can find – to weaken our ability to unite and fight against them and the rotten profit system they defend.

But none of that can stop fierce opposition growing under this Labour government.

Hundreds and thousands of young people have protested against the Israeli state’s genocidal war on Gaza in the past year, with students launching our own protest encampments in universities up and down the country. That fight is going to continue this term.

Starmer has already promised that “things will get worse” on his watch. His government is reporting a £22 billion ‘black hole’ in its finances, and it wants us to foot the bill through cuts to our services, like schools and the NHS. So there will have to be opposition to these attacks too.

Workers will have to strike for decent living conditions under Labour, just like they did on a massive scale in the final years of the Tory government. Labour has already been forced to give pay rises to NHS workers and teachers – they were scared that if they didn’t, then those workers would strike against them! It all goes to show that when we fight, we can win – and that students can strengthen our potential to fight back by linking up with the workers’ movement.

Ultimately, we need to channel all these different struggles – against racism, and war and occupation; for decent pay, and good-quality services and homes for all; for a safe and sustainable climate – into one massive movement that fights to end capitalism and build a socialist world free from exploitation and oppression.

A world in which society’s wealth and resources would be democratically owned and planned by the working class to meet the needs of all, instead of to make profits for the few.

That’s what Socialist Students is fighting for from day one of the new term. If you want to build the socialist opposition to Starmer and capitalism, join us!

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PREPARE FOR  LABOUR ATTACKS ON UNI FUNDING

Starmer and his ministers are considering raising tuition fees to plug the gaping hole in higher education funding – a far cry from 2019 when former leader Jeremy Corbyn was promising to abolish them!

If Starmer goes ahead with increasing tuition fees, or any other attack on universities, then there will need to be mass student meetings held on every campus to discuss and democratically agree a concrete plan of action to organise and defend our futures.

Socialist Students would help to organise such meetings and build protests wherever we can. We also campaign as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) for steps to be taken towards building a new mass workers’ party that gives a socialist alternative to Starmer’s Labour and all the pro-capitalist parties – including standing for free education.

Read our full article on the university funding crisis below: