James Taylor, Birmingham Socialist Students

The Socialist Students annual conference is taking place in Manchester on 14 February. Members will be voting on the adoption of a new constitution, as well as debating the role we can play, fighting for socialist ideas in the student movement.

The huge enthusiasm for Corbyn and Sultana’s Your Party in the summer, and for Zack Polanski’s leadership of the Green Party shows the huge appetite for socialist ideas. This conference will help us sharpen our understanding of the political processes taking place, and prepare us for the opportunities and challenges of getting stuck into the struggles ahead.

The capitalist system offers no way forward for young people. In fact, by trying to look after the profits of the bosses, governments like Keir Starmer’s are attacking young and working-class people. We anticipate significant student movements in the coming years, and want Socialist Students to be prepared to play a role in leading those struggles.

We have already tested our ability to lead youth movements by organising hundreds of students walking out against Trump in September, when Starmer’s government and the King rolled out the red carpet for the president.

We want to get as many students as possible, prepared to help get organised and fight for socialist ideas, to come to this conference.

In Birmingham, we have organised to hire a people carrier to get our Socialist Students members to Manchester. There are a few benefits of this over individual transport. First, it is slightly cheaper for each passenger to pay their share for car hire than to buy a train ticket. Second, attendees are more likely to make a firm commit to come if they pay up front to confirm their place with us, rather than facing the additional and more expensive hurdle of having to organise their own transport. Third, it will give us a chance to discuss politics and the proposed constitution together on the journey.

Our activities on campus will include leafleting and organising our usual fortnightly meetings. These meetings focus on issues which students are engaged in. Our first meeting back after Christmas is discussing Trump’s abduction of Nicolás Maduro, and the character of the Chavez-Maduro governments.

Another practical measure we have taken is creating and updating a beautifully colour-coded spreadsheet of contacts gathered from meetings and stalls this year. In the coming weeks we will be contacting all 80+ names on the spreadsheet to encourage them to come along to the conference.

I encourage all to push for maximum participation in this conference, reaching out to every student we have met this year, including members of other socialist-adjacent student societies, to get as broad a layer of youth along as possible. Building strong foundations for us to play a role in futures struggles of youth and students.

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Penelope Dawber, Preston Socialist Students

Preston Socialist Students members at University of Lancashire (UCLan) and Cardinal Newman College are working extremely hard to prepare for Socialist Students conference. In just three short months, we have formed a society at the university and are on the way to one at the college. We have been out campaigning, including helping organise a counter-demo to a far-right organised anti-immigration protest.

But we’re not slowing down this new year! Ahead of the conference, some of us are going to the UCU strike at Lancaster and Morecambe College against unfair, below-inflation pay rises. We plan to speak to students about why they should support their teachers on strike, and join them in a fight for decent, fully funded education.

On 17 January, we are joining a march through Preston against the Reform council’s planned closure of several nurseries and care homes across Lancashire, organised by local authority trade union Unison. There we will be making a call for a workers’ budget conference in the city, to draw up a council budget that would meet the needs of our communities. We are also planning meetings to discuss the draft constitution documents for Socialist Students, to be voted on at the conference, including to discuss any comments or amendments that we wish to make.

We are going to advertise the conference with campaign stalls at the college and uni. Using our position as an official society, we will try to get the Students Union to advertise the conference.

When we hold our next meetings we will also be discussing transport down to the conference. Even though in Preston we are still only small, we are having a big impact, and our new members can be thanked for that!

• Saturday 14 February 2026, 10am-5pm
• University Place @ University of Manchester (176 Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PL)
• Registration opens 9am; conference starts 10am
• Register here: