Archie Betts, Liverpool Socialist Students

A new surge in the cost-of-living crisis is beginning to bite, and its getting even harder to find a job, especially for young people.

Over one million people aged between 16 and 24 are not in education, employment or training (NEET), according to the latest government report. The climate crisis continues to get worse, and all the horrors of war fill our screens. This is a system that can’t provide us with a decent future.

People are angry – and rightly so. The capitalist system makes the rich richer but our services are crumbling and we keep being asked to pay more for the basics. There is a deep discontent and a complete lack of trust in the establishment.

Is Reform an alternative?

In the May elections, some working people used a vote for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as a way to express anger against the status quo and what is seen by many as the Labour-Tory uniparty.

A vote for Reform however, is anything but a vote against the status quo. As with the many other failed ventures of Nigel Farage, Reform plays up to the anger of the working class. It doesn’t point towards how we can win a fight against the bosses getting richer at our expense though.

In fact, it deliberately helps the bosses by trying to divide the working class and young people – something Labour and the Tories do too. Asylum seekers, trans people, disabled people – all are being scapegoated by the bosses and their politicians. And now the Labour government is preparing the ground to attack young people, arguing that we should be paid a lower minimum wage and be forced to do unpaid work placements.

What is needed is a united struggle of the whole working class, together with young people – fighting for decent jobs, a home for all, fully funded services, and against the bosses’ division. The trade unions should lead that fight, and put forward a clear socialist programme to address the real needs of society, one that vehemently rejects the current wave of fearmongering and scapegoating.