Ben Golightly, Open University student

The issue of disability cuts may have dropped a little from current consciousness, following a major, if partial, retreat from the government, and the announcement that PIP changes will come only after the Timms review is “co-produced” by disabled people. We are all waiting to see exactly what that means.

 However, every indication so far is that the review is being rigged beyond even the most pessimistic estimates. This year, disabled students will have to organise to defend PIP, a benefit that supports and enables many.

 This may be a slow burning campaign, culminating in Autumn 2026, rather than a repeat of the pitched three-month battle over disability cuts that humbled the government in July. However, with time to prepare properly, it could be even more significant.

 The NUS so far has provided no lead at all. Socialist Students, as a campaigning organisation fighting to get students building the maximum fightback to this Labour government, can play an important role and support the development of Universities Against Disability Cuts (UADC).

 Socialist Students societies can start preparing now, in advance of the start of term, to link up with other societies, pass student union motions, and hold meetings on campus, led by disabled students, but also involving socialists, campus staff and trade unions, linking in all of the wider issues: university funding crises, rent and housing, fees, low pay, war, defence of trans students, an analysis of capitalism, the crisis in working class political representation, and the need for socialism.

These are already common ideas for many disabled people, and we want those people to be part of Socialist Students in fighting for a socialist world that meets the needs of everyone.

On Thursday November 28^th, Tuesday 3^rd and Wednesday 4^th December further education workers in the National Education Union (NEU) will be taking industrial action in sixth form colleges for funding and pay. NEU members voted overwhelmingly to take strike action. 97% voted in favor of taking this action with a 62% turnout.

Socialist Students understands the importance of workers taking action to fight for better pay, funding and conditions. Socialist Students sends solidarity to the NEU and all workers taking strike action on college and sixth form campuses. Socialist Students members will be on the picket lines speaking to workers about their dispute. We call on all students to support staff and lecturers on strike.

These conditions that our staff are teaching us in are also our learning environment, with crumbling buildings, overworked staff and high fees for further education students who are 19 before the start of their course. If you want to fight for funding, not only to get better conditions for our staff but also to fight for free education, student grants and a safer learning environment, then join Socialist Students. Link in bio for more information

Leicester Socialist Students

Socialist Students at De Montfort University (DMU) in Leicester have been campaigning against the vice-chancellor’s plans to make cuts in academic staff and increase tuition fees. The vice-chancellor Katie Normington emailed staff to inform them that she “cannot rule out” redundancies in the light of financial difficulties, only two years after the last round of redundancies. She has warned that if voluntary redundancies are not forthcoming then there would be ‘formal’ (i.e. compulsory) redundancies. Her salary is £249,000 in 2022-23 according to DMU’s own annual accounts

Cuts in academic staff could mean fewer courses on offer and/or an increase in workload for the remaining staff.

DMU is claiming that its spending will be greater than its income, and it will have to use cash reserves to balance the books. Socialist Students says ‘open the books, let’s see how much is in the cash reserves and where money is being spent’. University and College Union (UCU) members are claiming that DMU has invested in an expansion of operations in London and Dubai. It is thought that around £10 million was invested. DMU has also invested in Cambodia and Kazakhstan.

The Leicester Mercury quoted one UCU member as saying that the university has turned into an “unrecognisable corporate franchising operation”.

But why should education be run like a commercial business? Britain is the sixth-wealthiest nation in the world. Education should be fully funded and free to students. Education workers, students and the wider working class should decide how universities are run and funded.

DMU Socialist Students will be stepping up the campaign to scrap tuition fees, cancel student debt and replace student loans with living grants. We will also be contacting the UCU and the students union to suggest a joint campaign to defend jobs and against a rise in tuition fees.

Louie Nardini, York Socialist Students

Students are standing up against Labour’s new hike of tuition fees. With Bob Marley music being blasted and megaphone chanting, people stopped to talk to us at our protest at York uni.

One student asked how it would be funded. We stated that a 1% wealth tax could easily generate £25 billion, and that a push for higher corporation tax and a decrease in income tax on ordinary people could easily lift the burden on many working students. We also talked to the York Vision student magazine and gave leaflets to passers-by about Labour’s proposals, and why they should not be trusted by students.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 2024

Isis Smyth, Liverpool Socialist Students

The cost-of-living crisis is hitting young people and students particularly hard. 25% of young people are skipping at least one meal every day, and often a lot more than that, in order to save money.

We can feel the disregard the ruling class has for the working class, and it’s vile. But even more outrageous is the double oppression that working-class women are forced to endure.

Not only are working-class women students going hungry, but they are also experiencing an epidemic of sexual assault on the very campuses of the universities leaving them in thousands of pounds in debt.

A survey by Revolt Sexual Assault in 2018 found that, of those who responded, 62% of students and graduates had experienced an act of sexual violence in universities across the UK. The fact that these were disproportionately women makes what we already know clear: sexual violence is overwhelmingly an attack on women.

Disgracefully only 2% of those felt they could report it to the universities and could say they were satisfied with the measures taken in response. Most occurrences of sexual misconduct happen in halls of residence and on-campus social spaces like student union bars. These are places where students are supposed to feel safe. And a quarter said they skipped lectures, changed modules or have taken other measures to avoid the perpetrator, with 16% dropping out of university as a result of their attack.

Women are being denied the right to safety and to higher education. A third of unis have been found to silence victims using non-disclosure agreements.

Violence against women was endemic under the Tories and Labour’s policies are going to change nothing. Keir Starmer recently pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, but he is totally incapable of doing this.

Nothing on violence against women and girls was mentioned in Labour’s recent Budget and, of the minimal first steps Starmer had announced in his plan to tackle this violence, universities were not mentioned once, despite women university students and other young women being more likely than any other age group to experience sexual violence. It’s been reported that 97% of women between ages 18-24 had experienced sexual harassment or assault. When I spoke to my friends about this, a lot of them said they expected it to be higher.

Universities are run like profit-seeking companies and Starmer has no ambition to change this. To university management, the lining of their own pockets is more important than women’s safety and far too little funding is being put into keeping women safe on campus. But this is simply the reality of capitalism in which women’s bodies are objectified and commodified.

Socialist Students says that universities should be publicly owned and under democratic workers’ and students’ control. This is the only way that universities will be accessible and safe for all. We advocate for special elected and accountable committees of students and campus trade unions to oversee issues of sexual misconduct on campus.

But this alone won’t end the issue of sexual violence. Huge gains in recent decades have been won, advancing women’s rights. But the problem still persists. When the amount of sexual misconduct reports that the police and universities are receiving is growing, and when a woman is still killed by a man every three days in England and Wales – likely a huge underestimate – it’s clear that something needs to change.

Movements to tackle violence against women must be led with the understanding that capitalism is the core issue. Because women’s oppression was created in a class society, it just cannot be eradicated under one. We need socialist change to create a world where women’s safety isn’t sacrificed for profit, and where equality and peace can prevail. We need socialist change to rid the world of the dehumanizing idea that women are objects to be bought and sold, picked up and put down whenever powerful men want.

That’s why every year on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Socialist Students hold a national day of action. So join us on 25 November to kick sexism off campus and rally in solidarity against capitalism.

• This is adapted from a speech delivered at the Funding Not Fees closing rally for Socialism2024, 10 November, London