^{Text from a Socialist Students leaflet}

What future do young people have today? The wealth of the richest 1% soars. But all we get are countless wars and climate destruction. The cost of everything is getting higher and higher – from phone bills and food prices to transport fares.

Rent is unaffordable. Wages are too low. Education is under attack. And under Labour, things are only getting worse. In this cruel capitalist world, it’s no wonder so many young people struggle with their mental health. Some students don’t receive mental health support, due to underfunding – services for all young people are inadequate.

This Labour government has shown it is no different to the conservatives. Even before they were in power, Labour backed the Israeli state’s assault on Gaza. Since forming a government, they’ve raised tuition fees for the first time in nearly a decade, refused to end age-based pay discrimination, and announced plans to restrict disability benefits – including raising the age for young people to access Personal Independence Payment from 16 to 18.

Whether it’s enabling war and poverty overseas or attacking the futures of young people in Britain, Starmer’s Labour Party is always on the side of the super-rich elites and their capitalist system. Starmer has rolled out the red carpet for Trump to visit the UK, both of which defend the same capitalist system.

This capitalist system, prioritises short – term profit over the majority of people’s needs at every turn, from education and housing to healthcare, jobs, and the environment, as well as stoking racist and homophobic division.

There is an alternative

The resources exist to provide everyone with a decent standard of living. The top 100 UK companies hand over £80 billion a year to shareholders – money that could instead be used to fund high-quality housing, free education, public transport, and well-paid jobs.

If we took all the major corporations and banks into public ownership, run democratically by working-class people to meet people’s needs and not for profit, then everyone could have a decent well-paid job, a high-quality home, free public transport, and access to free education and healthcare. It would be a socialist society based on collaboration and solidarity between people, laying the basis for ending all war, oppression and where human need and environmental sustainability come first.

We can fight back!

We’ve seen the power of working-class collective action. When workers across the country took strike action in recent years, they forced both bosses and the Conservative government to make concessions on pay, conditions, and funding for our services.

If the trade unions can fight and win under the Conservatives, then they can do the same under Labour. Every young worker should join a trade union, get active and fight for a socialist leadership which could be fighting for a £15-an-hour minimum wage for all – with no exceptions based on age.

Students also have the power to fight back and link up with workers doing the same. Socialist Students members in colleges and schools have recently organised walkouts and campaigns against the war in Gaza, and also fought for the right to meet and discuss socialist ideas. We have seen huge movements initiated by students take place in Serbia, Bangladesh and elsewhere at the forefront of challenging capitalist governments power.

In 2021 students at Pimlico Sixth Form College in London went on strike to protest the racist uniform rules, and against the removing of Black History month from the curriculum. When we fight, we can win change.

But we need political representation for our movements. Labour won’t represent us. Neither will the Tories, Reform, or the other pro-capitalist parties. They represent the interests of capitalism whilst expecting young people to quietly accept a system that fails us.

We say: enough. It’s time to build a new political force – a mass working-class party with socialist policies that gives a voice to our struggles and a vision for a socialist future.

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We say:

• For fully funded, free education – introduce living grants for all students, scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt, and stop cuts to courses
• Divestment from arms and big business – no place for profiteers from war and exploitation in our education
• Mass trade union struggle for a £15-an hour minimum wage now! Ban unequal youth pay rates and scrap zero-hour contracts
• End the housing crisis! For a mass building programme of high-quality, affordable council housing
• Take the wealth off the super-rich! For the banks, monopolies and major industries to be owned and run by the working class to meet everyone’s needs, not the profits of a few
• Build the socialist opposition to Labour, the Conservatives, Reform and all the establishment parties! Build a new mass workers’ party with socialist policies to give working class and young people a political voice!

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