Louie Nardini, York Socialist Students

Students at the University of York protested against the ratification of an official Restore Britain Society on 22 May. The society has been getting lots of attention for its provocative social media posts. One, for example, advertises a ‘detain and deport pub golf social’, showing their racist scapegoating.

Speaking at the demo, I raised the role that all capitalist politicians, including the Labour government, are responsible for the growth of the right. By implementing austerity, and themselves using racist scapegoating to divide the working class and young people. Thousands of young people and students attended the March demo against the right, organised by the Together Alliance. But its slogan of “love, hope and unity”, won’t cut across the right – students need a better plan of action.

In York we have been calling for an open forum that students can use to debate and discuss the issues we are faced with. By putting forward a fight against cuts, for free and fully funded education and a united working-class fightback, we can cut across disillusionment and the ability of Restore to get an echo. We can’t just oppose the far-right, we need to get organised to  strike at the heart of austerity and brutal student cuts.

York Students’ Union (YSU) does not play that role, and has defended its decision to ratify the Restore society as protecting free speech. One chant read: “How do you spell useless: YSU.” We completely agree. YSU has done nothing to help with the fight against bursary cuts this year. We’ve got to build the pressure and fight for the reimbursement of the bursaries.