“We truly are in unprecedented times” – these were the opening words of the 2026 Socialist Students conference in Manchester. On Saturday 14 February, over 80 student activists from across England and Wales battled train cancellations and a cost-of-studying crisis to come and debate what can be done to combat crisis-ridden capitalism on and off campus.

Kicking off the opening session on ‘The struggle for socialism in a world on fire’, Robbie Davidson from Manchester Socialist Students pointed out that young people can see more clearly than ever that this is a system with no answers. The purpose of the discussion wasn’t just to moan about the ills of capitalism today, but to have a stocktake of what is wrong with the world so we can understand how to change it.

That’s why he described the brutal repression being meted out by Trump and his anti-immigration ICE goons in Minneapolis, and the stoking of global tensions with military interventions in each of Venezuela, Nigeria and Iran in recent months.

This is not coming from a position of strength, but because Trump is unable to answer declining living standards and becoming ever more unpopular among workers and youth in America. There’s been walkouts of students and workers in Minneapolis against ICE killings, and occupations, as well as some of the biggest protests in US history around the No Kings movement.

And crucially, socialism is back on the agenda in the US. Newly elected Zohran Mamdani declares himself a socialist, a point of attraction rather than a turn-off for the million-plus who voted for him, and the thousands who came out to campaign for him.

Walking out against Trump

The effect of “bigot in chief” Trump on radicalising young people isn’t just a factor in the US, but also here in Britain. Last September when he came to Britain, Socialist Students organised walkouts of school and college students against the red carpet being rolled out for him by Starmer and the royal family. Despite attempts by headteachers to threaten disciplinary action, lock school gates and snatch leaflets from our hands, Socialist Students met college and school students taking political action for their first time and helped them get organised.

Not that there’s a lack of reasons to be angry much closer to home. Those turning 18 today will have lived their entire life in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis. Many of British capitalism’s problems stem from this era. In the two decades since, Tory, Lib Dem and Labour governments have attempted to break even by making the working class pay.

Low pay and high rents accelerated in the austerity era, schools became underfunded to the extent that teachers have been paying out of their own pocket for supplies for years. Dean Young from Liverpool described the dire situation facing young people leaving education. The unemployment rate among 16 to 24-year-olds is now 15.9%, with over half a million looking for work and unable to get it, while 800,000 claim Universal Credit. Linked to this is the disappearance of graduate and entry-level job roles.

And as James Taylor from Birmingham described, those able to find full-time employment on marginally more than the minimum wage will be faced with crippling loan repayments of 9% of their income over the £28,470 threshold for repayments, set to be frozen for the remainder of this government. Crippling interest of inflation +1% and additional repayments of 14% for those with postgraduate qualifications means that even those entering previously well-paid professions are finding their income squeezed by student debt. No wonder in recent years there have been well-supported strikes by resident doctors, teachers and even barristers!

These are just a few of many examples of trade unions coming back on to the scene. Conference delegates gave plenty of examples of how Socialist Students groups have worked with unions, including those in higher education struggling against job cuts, low pay and bad working conditions.

Tilde Resare from University of Sheffield described the ongoing strikes against redundances. Management have been hard to negotiate with, demanding strikers work in their own time to make up for work missed during strikes or face losing 100% of their pay (including for non-strike days). Striking University and College Union members effectively faced a 18-day-long lockout.

One staff member was penalised for not running a tutorial to prepare for an exam that had already happened. Sheffield Socialist Students have been able to help explain the reasons for the strike to students by leafleting alongside striking workers.

Ben from Birmingham called on delegates to look for where workers are fighting back in their local areas, such as the Birmingham bin workers fighting pay cuts and deskilling, or Oxfordshire firefighters campaigning to maintain a safe level of cover.

These examples of collective action by workers aren’t just deserving of support in their own right, but can give confidence and inspiration to students in how to organise to win their own struggles.

The University of Essex is threating closure of its Southend campus – hundreds of local students, especially from working-class backgrounds and facing barriers to study are being told they don’t have a place at university.

15,000 threatened job cuts

Nationally there have been 15,000 threatened job cuts in higher education since the start of 2025, with the government not ruling out closure of some unis. The occupation of campus buildings and mass assemblies on the level that took place against the trebling of tuition fees in 2010 could spark a national movement. This would put pressure on the Labour government to step in with emergency funding and replace the current inadequate funding model for higher education that relies on UK students being saddled with debt, international students rinsed for every penny, and universities making deals with arms companies and other unethical investments.

In Manchester, where the university is the largest landlord in the city, Socialist Students have played a leading role in the relaunched ‘Fight The Rent Hike’ campaign. This is in response to one of two relatively affordable options for university halls being replaced with one costing £100 a week more, with the rents raised after prospective students had already applied to live there.

With student finance held at below-inflation levels for years, the cost-of-studying crisis has reached such a level that a few quid extra a week in laundry costs represents a big hit for students. Socialist Students at University of Arts London (UAL) launched the Circuit No! campaign against washing machine provider Circuit Go charging over £5 a load for laundry.

To add insult to injury, costs for the same washing machines provided by this company, who have 90% of the UK market stitched up, vary massively between campuses, even within the same city.

As Kat from UAL put it: “Students across the country are being ripped off. It’s time for students to take a stand”.

Morgan Tritton from University of Hertfordshire described the epidemic of violence against women on campus: “We’re not putting up and shutting up”. Socialist Students societies have recently campaigned to improve sexual harassment reporting policies at Herts, won gender neutral changing rooms at Queen Mary University, and reinstated the night bus at University of Liverpool.

Socialist Students national organiser Adam Powell-Davies described how, although we are not at the moment in the middle of a national wave of student struggle, there is a questioning of the system in the minds of young people.

Socialist Students has been making progress, with a record number of students signing up to get involved this academic year. That’s because we don’t just talk about revolution, or fight for every possible gain on campus, but link the two to the need for socialist transformation of society.

To set ourselves up for this new era of opportunities to build support for socialist ideas on campuses, the conference debated and voted to adopt a new constitution for Socialist Students. This re-establishes the democratic structures of Socialist Students, with each society having the right to send motions to conference establishing the political and campaigning direction of the organisation, send a representative to the national steering committee that assesses the work of Socialist Students and takes decisions between conferences, and to vote on the officers responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation.

This includes the existing 40 societies and campus groups active across England and Wales. But the conference also agreed that other student groups with a socialist orientation should be able to affiliate to Socialist Students and participate in its structures.

We expect everyone involved in Socialist Students to agree to aims of fighting for socialism, while encouraging maximum debate on how it can best be achieved. This will mean testing out ideas in the real struggle and then reassessing based on the fullest possible democratic debate within the structures of Socialist Students.

Your Party and the Greens

Already, representatives of Aston Left Society and Kings College London and University College London Your Party supporters were present at the conference.

With the huge surge in support for and membership of the Green Party among young people since the election of Zack Polanski as leader, this could include Green Party societies. As Tom Porter-Brown from Leicester put it, we have to show the way to Green Party members who want to fight austerity and capitalism.

It’s likely that after the May local elections, the Greens will have over 1,000 councillors, including in areas with large student populations, and a greater platform than ever to fight austerity. This will put them to the test as to whether they take an active role in campaigning for more funding for services, or a backseat one, or worse still join council administrations in wielding the axe as they have in Bristol and Sheffield.

Against the arguments that nothing can be done under the current model for funding local councils, we should be prepared to argue that the organised mass of young people and workers can knock back commissioners and council cuts, and that Green councils use reserves and borrowing to put a stop to the cuts.

Say to Greens, let’s come together and prove that the answer to our problems lies in the coffers of the fat cats. After all, no party governing under the constraints of the capitalist markets will be able to fundamentally change things for working-class and young people.

This includes Reform UK. Many spoke on the worry students and young people feel at the prospect of a Reform government, and the growth of the far right beyond that. At the same time, the conference recognised that they have been able to grow due to the failure of the establishment parties and that the working class does not yet have its own mass political voice.

As Ali from Yorkshire pointed out in the closing rally, Reform societies have been set up on some uni campuses but at the moment find a limited echo. When Farage’s social media manager was invited to speak at York University, hundreds came out to protest.

After all, what do Reform have to offer students? They have no answers to the higher education funding crisis, for example, or any of the crises students face. So what better way to cut across support for Reform and the far right than to offer a real alternative? A socialist world free from want and oppression.

Multiple speakers pointed to the two thirds of young people in Britain who, in opinion polls, have said they’d like to live in a socialist economic system. The task now will be to translate the constitution and motions voted on from words on a bit of paper into action, so Socialist Students can be a real factor in the battles emerging on campus.

As Becca Bayman from Liverpool commented in the closing rally, it’s an increasingly difficult time for students, but increasingly important to build a fightback. After this year’s conference, Socialist Students is well placed to lead this.