Sofia Pandolfi, college student and Socialist Students member, gave an inspiring speech at Socialism 2025. Read what she had to say here!

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Young people today have grown up in a world of crisis. We’ve seen governments increase university tuition fees, cut our youth services, attempt to strip away disability benefits for young people, and propose a future which gives us no hope.

Internationally, we’ve watched our government support the brutal genocide in Palestine, claiming it has no money to invest in our education and services.

Living under a system devoid of opportunities, and dependent on international exploitation, has fuelled anger and frustration.

But if we young people are to have a real future to look forward to, we need to transform our anger into action – by getting organised for a socialist alternative to capitalism, and the war, exploitation and oppression that this system produces.

That is what Socialist Students did when Donald Trump, an embodiment of capitalism in crisis, came to visit the UK on the invitation of Keir Starmer in September.

Socialists Students organised a campaign of youth walkouts against Trump to get young people organised against Trump and Starmer’s politics of war and division. To build for the walkouts in London, I helped to give out hundreds of leaflets, put up posters, and met with students to share ideas on how to protest against Trump’s visit.

Hundreds of students across the country, standing up to Trump and the brutal system he represents, walked out of their schools, colleges, and universities on the 17 September – the day Trump was in Windsor Castle feasting on a state banquet with Starmer, the King, and a guest list of billionaire tech CEOs.

It wasn’t easy. At one school in South London, we watched the headteacher rip leaflets out of students’ hands. At another school in East London, the management called the police to intimidate students into not protesting.

The youth walkouts against Trump were a chance to show that young people can fight back when we get organised. Socialist Students is now following up the walkouts with a campaign to get students in schools, sixth forms and colleges building our own students’ unions, as a way for young people to have an organised voice. Not just for one day, but always.

By getting organised as students, we can more effectively link up with the workers who keep our education and society running and build a united movement for the socialist change that we all need.

For that, young people also need a political voice through which we can fight alongside the organised working class. Your Party is an opportunity to do that.

Your Party could give a voice to young people’s anger by demanding fully funded free education, mass building of council houses and rent controls, as part of a socialist programme to transform the lives of working-class and young people.

Why not take that first step by having Zarah Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn, and other Your Party MPs in the Independent Alliance proposing an amendment to the upcoming budget – instead of Labour’s plans for more tuition fee rises, calling for the total abolition of fees, as well as the cancellation of student debt, and the immediate reintroduction of maintenance grants for all students?

Socialist Students members have joined Your Party and are fighting for socialism and working-class struggle to be at the heart of it.

In universities across the country, we’ve organised dozens of meetings discussing how Your Party can be a democratic voice for students. As a next step to building the party we need on campus, we will be inviting Zarah Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn and the other Independent Alliance MPs to be part of a Your Party speaking tour of universities and colleges.

If you want to help build a political voice which can help unite students and young people with the powerful struggles of the working class, then join Socialist Students at your school, college or university to help build the fightback.