Socialist Students members have launched a campaign calling for free bus travel for all in West Yorkshire, starting immediately with under-25s. Route cuts should be reversed, services expanded, and SEND (special educational needs and disability) transport fully funded.
The entire bus network should be brought into public ownership, under the democratic control of workers and service users. We have run campaign stalls, taking our petition across Leeds, targeting popular student and residential areas, and sixth-form colleges. And online too.
West Yorkshire Labour mayor Tracy Brabin had previously stood and won election as an MP when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader. Then, Corbyn pledged free bus travel for under-25s. So why can’t this be implemented now she’s mayor?
We built for a public meeting, inviting supporters of our campaign and users of the network to speak on the issues they face. The campaign didn’t stop after our meeting.
We took part in a protest outside Tracy Brabin’s offices, organised by Better Buses West Yorkshire. They staged a ‘People’s Question Time’ to highlight that there is no public consultation on changes to our bus network.
Speeches took place, and this allowed Socialist students members to raise our demands for genuine public ownership. We also raised campaigning with bus drivers in Unite the Union. Franchising leaves their terms and conditions in the hands of private companies.
Brabin did come out to briefly address the crowd, and agreed to a public mayoral ‘question time’ at an unspecified date. Our campaign activity will continue throughout the summer. And, in September, we’ll have the opportunity to raise it with the next cohort of students at freshers’ week.
In May, an estimated 50,000 students in Germany walked out in huge school strikes against military conscription. This was a marker for the fightback which could be posed across Europe – as young people face a myriad of crises in education, employment and the rising cost of living, while governments pour even more money into arms and militarisation. The German government is ramping up spending on militarisation. In Britain, Keir Starmer has followed suit, announcing a new rollout of austerity cuts to make way for an increase of £25 billion per year on the armed forces in the newly published Defence Investment Plan. And incoming prime minister Andy Burnham has said he will stick to it! They are both in agreement that the NHS, welfare, education and more should be on the chopping block to pay for their wars.
Starmer and Burnham’s plan is a single, but very telling, example of the bloodthirsty instability which plagues the global capitalist system. Bosses and politicians around the world are looking to shore up their interests while economies stagnate through direct imperialist interventions and war. Trump, the figurehead of this system, has continued to try papering over the cracks of a declining superpower in the US, by invading Iran, beheading the Venezuelan regime, threatening Greenland and maintaining support for Israeli capitalism’s bloody slaughter of the Palestinians. However no attempt to reassert the dominance of US imperialism, nor British military strength, can provide a solution to the turgid living standards.
This is why Socialist Students will be joining the international youth day of action on the 20 November organising walkouts with the slogan ‘Fight for our futures, not their wars’. We call on all those in the anti-war movement to join us, as well as the masses of young people feeling the sharp end of the unemployment crisis, the decline of further and higher education, and cuts to schools and colleges – to launch a genuine youth fightback to win the resources for our jobs and education, not wasted on their wars!
For the second academic year in a row, the government is poised to cut £100 million of university funding from high-cost and priority subjects, including nursing.
The Department for Education (DfE) has announced that the strategic priorities grant will be cut to £1.25 billion (£1.45 billion in 2024-25), in a move that pushes the burden of funding higher education even more firmly onto individual students through their fees and a lifetime of debt.
The Russell Group, 24 prestigious research universities, have responded by calling into question how this latest cut will impact the government’s stated aim of growth. They amplify the role universities can play in “delivering much needed economic growth, innovation and jobs.”
The £336 million in capital funding promised by DfE shows a fundamental misunderstanding of higher education. Universities aren’t renovated buildings, they are made up by the people working, teaching and studying there. New buildings and equipment won’t bring back redundant staff or convince working-class students to get a degree.
Like required reading, few students ever read the contract they sign with student finance, but a recent NUS survey suggests that a third of students now believe getting a degree is not worth the time and money.
These students have recognised that, after the impact of funding cuts and increased debts, their degrees have simultaneously risen in cost and fallen in value over successive years.
Many universities are now faced with a choice: how will they make up the shortfall? A favoured target to cut is student services and welfare programmes, seen as non-academic non-essential services. At my university, Brunel, in 2022 an engineering student Jos Winfield took his own life, resulting from poor mental health brought on by the pressures of university life. His father is adamant the university should have done more. The budget for student welfare has decreased markedly since that time.
One thing is clear, as the funding model for higher education places more strain on students mentally and financially, many more students will be placed into an even more vulnerable and precarious position.
We say:
We need free education, with full funding not more fees! Scrap student debt and provide maintenance grants we can live on
No course closures and job cuts. Take the wealth off the super-rich to provide decent education for all, with university staff paid what they deserve
Young people in Britain today experience the bleak reality of what capitalism has to offer us – almost one in six young people not in education, employment or training. Amidst the crisis of youth unemployment, those who do find a job experience low pay and poor conditions.
This Labour government offers no solution to this crisis. Instead, it has backtracked on its promise to give 18-20 year olds the full minimum wage, arguing that employers will not hire young people if they are paid the same as workers 21 and over.
With no evidence that a rise in pay leads to higher unemployment, it’s no surprise that the government is prioritising the profits of the capitalist bosses over our needs.
Labour has also announced a plan to introduce new ‘work placements’ for young people. We will receive only benefit payments, not pay, for work under these schemes.
Continuing to be underpaid – or in some cases not paid at all – will not resolve the issues of employment, housing, and education faced by young people.
Nor will these issues simply be resolved by changing the Labour Party leader, despite attempts to present Andy Burnham as a left-wing alternative to Keir Starmer. We must organise, campaign, and demand that Andy Burnham implements the policies that young people need.
Our voice
What we need is a real political voice, a party that does not attack our living standards, but instead fights back with young and working-class people. This includes taking action to demand an increase in the minimum wage to £15 an hour, regardless of age, as a step towards a real living wage.
Trade unions can play a crucial role putting forward this demand, and mobilising young workers to take action for better jobs, training, and opportunities for all of us.
Over the summer and into the academic year, Socialist Students will be campaigning in schools, colleges, and universities. Young people look with frustration at the future of low pay, debt, and unaffordable housing that awaits us.
A few weeks ago, Socialist Students also met with other youth organisations from eight different countries in Europe to discuss how to build the anti-war movement (see page 4). That meeting agreed to organise an international youth strike on 20 November across Europe – building the youth fightback internationally.
Through a widespread youth movement, we can mobilise young people against war, division, and austerity. Whether you’re a young worker or student, by getting organised we can fight for better jobs and opportunities, for public investment in our education and services, and for the socialist change we need.
Build for an international youth strike this Autumn
Becca Bayman, delegate to the assembly and Liverpool Socialist Students
On 14 June, members of Socialist Students attended a Youth and Student Anti-War Assembly in Cologne, Germany. Twelve organisations from eight countries across Europe took part, including socialist youth organisations, climate justice groups and anarchist student unions.
The initiative began in solidarity with youth campaigns against military conscription in Germany. As opposition to militarisation has grown across the continent, the discussion broadened into how young people and students can build a coordinated European movement against war, militarism and austerity.
Our invitation to the assembly reflected the work Socialist Students has carried out in Britain. We were able to draw on experiences from the student walkouts against Donald Trump’s visit last September, alongside local campaigns, to contribute to discussions on how youth can organise effectively.
The urgency of building an anti-war movement was clear throughout the meeting. Last year, the UK government spent £66 billion on defence, while pressure from the capitalist class continues to mount on the Labour government to increase military spending even further. Across Europe, governments are preparing for a new era of militarisation. The European Union has lifted debt restrictions for military expenditure while encouraging member states to impose austerity on working-class people to pay the bill.
Socialist Students argued that resistance to these policies is already beginning and that our task is to strengthen and develop this fightback. Young people face attacks on education, housing, and living standards, while the government tells us there is always money available for war. Therefore, we put forward the need to link the struggle against militarism to the struggle against capitalism at every level.
Socialist Students proposed the slogan ‘Fight for Our Futures, Not Their Wars’, which was adopted by the assembly. The slogan provides a common banner under which youth movements across Europe can unite while allowing organisations in different countries to connect the anti-war struggle to the issues facing students and young people locally.
To help the movement grow, the assembly agreed a federal structure. New organisations will be able to affiliate on the basis of agreement with the core principles set out in the assembly’s manifesto, which outlines the political aims and common positions shared by participating groups.
A written contribution from the German youth organisation Die Falken will be published, incorporating amendments discussed during the meeting, to form the basis of further debate and discussion among participating organisations. Working groups were also established to coordinate campaigning, communications and mobilisation work, with regular online meetings planned for the coming months.
Throughout the assembly, Socialist Students argued for the need for a clear programme against war and militarism. Opposition to war cannot be separated from opposition to the capitalist system. Therefore, we will continue to connect the struggle against militarisation to the workers’ movement and fight to build links between young people and workers across Europe.
We are entering a period of deep instability internationally. As governments continue to inflict austerity and enforce militarisation, cooperation between youth and student organisations across Europe represents an important step forward. The challenges we face are international, and the struggle against capitalism must be international too.
By the end of the assembly, all participating organisations agreed on the goal of building towards a Europe-wide youth strike on 20 November. This proposal will now be discussed within each affiliated organisation as preparations begin.
One million young people thrown on the scrap heap.
That’s what the government announced last week, with new figures showing that one in eight 16 to 24-year-olds are currently not in education, employment or training.
Keir Starmer and the big business politicians pretend to care. But they don’t know what it’s like to compete with one thousand other applicants for a single entry-level job. They don’t know what it’s like to apply for hundreds of jobs without success or even a reply from a human, as society gradually convinces you there isn’t a place for you.
On their £100k salaries and MPs’ expenses, Starmer and his Labour government just make things worse. Take their decision to increase university tuition fees – how is that going to get more young people into education?
Now Labour is saying they’ll shelve their manifesto pledge to bring the minimum wage for 18 to 20-year-olds in line with the national minimum wage for over-21s. Why should anyone be paid less money for doing the same work?
And Labour also wants to bring in 300,000 unpaid ‘work experience’ placements for young people seeking work, which would force us to work in return for measly benefit payments. Free, publicly subsidised labour for the bosses, and poverty ‘wages’ for the young!
Ever since Labour was elected in 2024, they have tried to rule on behalf of the capitalist elites, attempting to maximise the bosses’ profits by attacking the living standards of young people and the working class. No wonder Labour is crashing and burning in office just like the Tories before them.
It is clear that Labour and the capitalists want to exploit the crisis facing young people in order to carry out even more attacks on our futures, and to boost big business profits even further.
Nigel Farage and Reform UK pretend to stand against the ‘establishment’. But what kind of ‘anti-establishment’ party welcomes in five former Tory MPs, with an ex-banker leader who accepted a £5 million ‘gift’ from a crypto billionaire? Reform just pose as an alternative, stoking racist division in an attempt to exploit the mass anger at Labour’s austerity.
Labour, Reform and all the establishment parties – they stand for the super-rich and their capitalist system. None of them have solutions to the crisis of mass youth unemployment and underfunded education, because that would require massive investment, which the capitalists are not willing to concede in an era of stagnating economic growth, rising inflation, and historically high levels of public and private debt.
The bosses and their politicians are going on the offensive. Our side, the working class, has to do the same – pointing to the enormous wealth, resources and technology that exist in Britain and internationally, and fighting for that to be in our hands so that we could democratically develop a socialist plan to provide a decent future for all young people.
During the strike wave in 2022-23, workers in Britain took strike action through their trade unions at a level not seen for three decades, forcing money into workers’ pockets that the Tories – and behind them, the capitalists – said was not there.
As rising inflation once again threatens to further erode the conditions of all workers, there is an urgent need for united trade union action that links the fight against the cost-of-living crisis to the fight for good jobs, apprenticeships and education for all.
Young people getting organised as part of this would have an enormous impact. Any young person in work should join and get active in a trade union, to be part of a collective fightback against Labour and the bosses.
Socialist Students wants to unite the fightback in schools, colleges and university campuses with Socialist Students. We are a student-led socialist organisation which our members help to build in over forty institutions across the UK.
School and college students could also join the fightback by building fighting student unions. A student union is a group of students who want to get organised to change things. By bringing students together in the fight for a decent future, a union can harness students’ collective strength and help get students organised alongside young workers and the wider working class.
We initiated the Youth Walkout Against Trump campaign in September 2025, with the aim of getting young people organised in the fight for a socialist future free of war, austerity, and the constant instability and uncertainty of capitalism. We have also helped to build the national Funding Not Fees campaign for fully funded, free education – not cuts, tuition fees and a lifetime of student debt.
If you are a young person looking for a socialist programme and organisation to fight for a real socialist plan for our futures, join us!
Over a decade since tuition fees were trebled and amongst mounting graduate anger, a parliamentary inquiry was launched to examine the impact of the student loan repayment system. The inquiry was conducted following controversy over Plan 2 loans, which were created by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government in 2012. A Plan 2 loan means that if you earn over a minimum threshold, 9% of your income above that amount is deducted toward student loan repayments. In November last year, Rachel Reeves fixed the minimum repayment threshold to £29,385 from 2027 to 2030, while the loans themselves continue to rise by at least the RPI inflation rate.
Of the 49,357 respondents to the inquiry who had taken out student loans, 40,373 said the financial impact of repaying their student loan was worse than they expected. 28,275 said that they did not understand the terms and conditions of their student loans before they took them out, a statistic that is wholly unsurprising when you consider that the majority of people signing up for this loan are 17 or 18 years of age, signing on to a potentially 40-year-long commitment. 45,843 said that they think the repayment terms were not reasonable and 25,291 said they would not take their student loan out if they were given the choice again.
These numbers reflect the dire reality of a generation of graduates who were promised that a university degree would give them a reasonable route to gainful employment, only to be met by an incredibly harsh job market. A generation was told that student loan repayments were nothing more than a small graduate tax and more than worth the amount of extra money you would be earning from entering the working world with a degree. They have been met by graduate salaries that have been unable to keep up with years of inflation and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis that makes any deductions from your wages increasingly difficult to manage.
Free and fully funded university education would irrefutably benefit society. Yet scrapping tuition fees seems utopian for a government that is more than willing to waste billions of pounds on wars and protecting the wealth of the super-rich. Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ introduced tuition fees in the first place, then the Tories and the Lib Dems created even more of a mess, which Starmer’s Labour has done nothing but preserve. Most of the graduates surveyed said they had no other choice but to take out student loans with hard to understand and unreasonable conditions. We need fully funded, free education with maintenance grants that students can actually live on, instead of loans. Student loan debt should be abolished, paid for by taking the wealth that the super-rich bosses make at all of our, including graduates, expense.
Student life has only become more expensive over the last decade, with tuition fees rising and the cost of living skyrocketing. During this same period, successive governments have chipped away at maintenance grants, replacing them with loans which burden students for life.
Now, university vice-chancellors are threatening to cut what few meagre bursaries are still available. A Universities UK poll found that hardship support for working-class students could be on the chopping block, with around one third of vice-chancellors saying they would cut grants and outreach programmes if the funding crisis isn’t resolved.
Students are increasingly having to take part-time jobs to the detriment of their studies in order to afford food, rent and bills. It would be unforgivable for university management to cut support to these students who need it most, especially while the same vice-chancellors talking about the lack of money in universities continue to make upwards of £400,000 a year.
The impact of decades of cuts and tuition fees means higher education floats from one funding crisis to another, with its financial dependence on international students looking increasingly precarious.
This same survey found 90% of universities are looking at hiring freezes or voluntary redundancies. As many university employees discovered the hard way in the last few years, it is a slippery slope from hiring freezes to the closure of entire departments.
Socialist Students are fighting back against cuts to jobs and grants. In the short term, action by students in conjunction with industrial action by education unions can prevent cuts. But we also must provide a vision for what education could be if provided for the good of society. The wealth is there in society but it is sucked away as profits are hoarded by a few.
Tuition fees should be scrapped, grants reestablished, and staff jobs made secure. This change is achievable if we fight for it.
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.
Socialist students members attended a demonstration at De Montfort University in Leicester on 21 May, against the newly proposed cuts set to make approximately 20 technicians in the arts department redundant.
Approximately 100 people attended, most of whom were arts students whose education would be compromised by these cuts, as well as other university staff and members of the University and College Union (UCU).
A Socialist Party member addressed the rally, highlighting the increasing prevalence of cuts to education, the growing wealth gap as a result of intensified austerity measures, and the importance of building a workers’ party of working-class people, students and trade unions in order to fight austerity. The need to coordinate the fightback with staff and students, and across other campuses like the University of Leicester where staff have recently organised strike actions to fight job cuts, was put forward as a necessary step to escalate the struggle. The speech went down well, we sold eight copies of the Socialist immediately after it finished.
It was generally a lively protest with chants of “Save our Techs” drawing the attention of other students and staff around. One of the protesters had a placard with the inscription “£2.2m for the Innovation Centre but £0 for the innovators”, highlighting how the university management is spending money on a centre to promote business ventures while implementing job cuts. Last year, UCU members at DMU called out management for spending money to establish international campuses in Dubai and Kazakhstan while carrying out redundancies here. This brings to the fore the question of democratic control of universities.
Socialist Students 