Socialist Students has engaged in a campaign to establish trade union recognition within the Liverpool Guild of Students.
The Guild hires over 200 staff. This includes bar staff, cleaners, baristas, and other roles. Despite having many commercial staff, there is a lack of a recognised trade union to represent the rights of said workers.
This is an issue, given the cuts to universities across the country, from the 100 voluntary redundancies in the University of Liverpool, to the redundancies in many universities, including Cardiff. There is a fear among workers within the Guild that these cuts may affect the Guild and its staff, and without any union representation, the workers will not be able to fight back.
There are issues that staff are facing within the Guild already. For example, many student staff are under zero-hour contracts, meaning that they are not guaranteed shifts every week, and that their pay will not be enough with the ever-increasing prices of food, washing and other necessities. There is also a lack of employer-provided travel for staff who work late nights, and may have to walk home to places like Smithdown Road or Greenbank, which is a safety concern given the distance that they would have to walk on their own.
Socialist Students has been campaigning on this issue with Unite, in order to establish it as the recognised union within the Guild. Other Guilds, such as the University of Birmingham, have Guild staff in Unison, so it can be done. We will continue to fight until the workers are represented not only in Liverpool, but nationally.
The marginalisation of working-class students continues with this latest round of cuts at the University of York. Socialist Students has been doing campaign stalls against the 50% cut to bursaries for poorer first-year students. Instead of £2,000, they now receive £1,000.
With university life already hard enough for low-income households, this adds further difficulties and fewer incentives. Education should be encouraged, regardless of income barriers.
That is why we advocate for fully funded, free education. That extra £1,000 belongs in the pockets of the students who make up the university, not its shareholders.
Liverpool students oppose right-wing Labour minister on visit
Jess O’Shaughnessy, Liverpool Hope Socialist Students
Liverpool Hope Socialist Students came out to protest against Labour minister Alison McGovern when she visited our uni on 21 November. McGovern has supported Labour maintaining the Tories’ two-child benefit cap, keeping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty. She also supports Labour’s disability benefit cuts.
We stood outside the main university building, explaining why we opposed her – putting forward the dire need for a new workers’ party. The students we spoke to agreed.
Hope University management considers Alison McGovern to be a worthwhile speaker, while the university itself continues through cuts and redundancies, and has not opposed rising tuition fees. Socialist Students launched the ‘Funding Not Fees’ campaign to demand that tuition fees be scrapped, with extra funding provided for education.
Opposing the capitalist Israeli state is not antisemitism
Defend the right to debate the way forward in the Middle East
Socialist Students steering committee
Socialist Students sends our solidarity to members of Linksjugend [‘solid] – the youth section of the German left party Die Linke – who have been subjected to vicious public attacks for their criticism of the Israeli state.
Shamefully, these attacks have come not just from the capitalist media in Germany, but also from the leadership of Die Linke itself.
At the federal conference of Linksjugend in early November, delegates voted in support of a motion on the Middle East that referenced the “colonial and racist character of the Israeli state project… from its beginnings to the present day”.
If anything, this characterisation is vague on the policies of mass expulsion, occupation, and state terror carried out by Israeli capitalist governments ever since the foundation of the Israeli state.
But the motion was still seized upon by the billionaire-owned press in Germany to spread accusations of antisemitism, in an attempt to defame Die Linke and its youth wing, and the global movement in solidarity with the Palestinians that has resurged in the past two years.
Unfortunately, the Die Linke co-leaders have responded by assisting in a witch hunt of its own young members in Linksjugend. They have asserted that “one cannot question the protection of Jewish life” – in other words, claiming that by opposing the Israeli capitalist state, Linksjugend members are undermining the safety of Jewish people.
But the opposite is true. It is the Israeli ruling class, and their staunch defence of an unequal capitalist system based on exploitation and oppression for private profit, which poses the biggest threat to the lives of Jewish people in Israel.
By ramping up war throughout the Middle East, the Netanyahu government has only increased fears and unease of most people living in Israel. Currently one-in-five Jewish Israeli children grow up below the poverty line. That’s before mentioning the genocidal policy of the Israeli government in Palestine, which in two years has claimed over 60,000 Palestinian lives and laid waste to Gaza – intensifying the national conflict and Palestinian suffering, and not bringing greater security to Israelis.
Socialist Students believes that the building of a movement for socialist change in Israel – which would include replacing the current capitalist Israeli state with a democratic workers’ government – will be a key part of the struggle for a socialist Middle East. That is the only way to finally end poverty, war, and oppression in the region. In opposing the current Israeli state in this way, socialists are the foremost defenders of the right of Jewish and all people to a genuinely safe and decent life.
As a socialist youth organisation, Socialist Students defends the right of all young people to discuss and debate a way out of the horror that capitalism means for billions around the globe. That includes the right to debate how the current nightmare in Palestine and the Middle East could be ended. We send solidarity to members of Linksjugend who, by adding to this debate, have faced vicious smears by agents of the capitalist class in Germany, both inside and outside Die Linke.
Hertfordshire Socialist Students is campaigning for action and funding from university management and the student union to end sexism and violence against women on campus.
In April, Student Council passed a motion unanimously, mandating Herts Students’ Union to pressure the university to improve incident-reporting systems, introduce prevention and education campaigns, provide consent and anti-harassment training for all students, and consult students and staff on these changes.
But since launching the campaign, Socialist Students has faced delays, silence, and contradictory statements from both the student union and university, especially over the rollout of mandatory consent and anti-harassment training.
The national Office for Students introduced new requirements in August. Despite repeated assurances from the Dean of Students at Herts that training had been delivered, evidence gathered by Socialist Students showed inconsistent implementation, poor-quality material, and many students who had not received any training.
After months of ignored emails, minimal communication to staff, and attempts by the university to evade responsibility, students are escalating pressure. Socialist Students has collected evidence of inaction, raised the issue in every available forum, and run mass email and social media campaigns, with other societies.
This pressure has now forced the university to commit to holding an open student forum in December. The Dean of Students and senior management will attend to answer for the failed rollout of training, and wider inaction.
Who stands up for us?
Once the highest democratic student body passes a motion, students should be able to trust that those elected and employed to represent their interests will lobby the university to make urgent changes to defend student safety. Instead, this struggle has exposed how compromised Herts Students’ Union, beholden to university management, and reliant on maintaining the institution’s public image, is often unwilling to fight for students’ interests, when those interests do not align with management priorities. Socialist Students has been working to re-politicise Herts Students’ Union, pushing it to become a fighting, democratic body, unafraid to challenge cuts, closures, and managerial overreach.
Socialist Students has also communicated our campaign’s concerns to staff and members of the University and College Union (UCU), who share frustrations over the university’s failure to protect students. We will continue building a united movement of students and workers to hold the uni accountable, especially since the Student Council’s democratic mandate has been ignored. Backed by staff, Student Council, and requirements set by the regulator, Socialist Students demands an overhaul of the uni’s approach to sexual harassment and misconduct.
Our campaign is part of a wider struggle for a socialist alternative to the capitalist system that fuels sexism and misogyny, and for free, fully funded education – starting with building a strong democratic student union that promotes a political voice for students.
Starmer’s Labour government has confirmed its plans for university tuition fees to go up every year. Left up to Labour, our fees will rise to well over £10,000 by 2029. That’s after fees have already gone up this term – the first rise in almost a decade.
Meanwhile, cuts to our education keep coming. Over half of universities are set to record ‘deficit budgets’ this year. Uni bosses have announced 15,000 job cuts in the last year, destroying thousands of courses and even entire departments in dozens of universities.
Why should we pay the price, at a time when the rich have never been richer? The FTSE 100 biggest corporations in Britain have been paying out around £85 billion annually to their shareholders. Students and staff need to unite in a movement that could put that wealth in our hands in order to fully fund education. That would include making education free for all, by abolishing tuition fees and providing maintenance grants that actually cover students’ living costs.
Socialist Students initiated the Funding Not Fees campaign as a means to get students organised alongside staff in a movement for fully funded, free education. As well as holding protests on dozens of campuses, and supporting workers striking back, a key part of the campaign has been lobbying MPs – fighting for our movement to have a political voice.
That fight could be massively boosted by the existence of Your Party, launched by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. Over 800,000 signed up to find out more within a week of its announcement.
When Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party, his anti-austerity, anti-war policies enthused hundreds of thousands of young people. A major reason for that was his policy for free education in the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
Now students have the chance for there to be a mass party that will fight fees and cuts, and fund education by making the super-rich pay.
Just the prospect of a new party fighting ‘for the many, not the few’ has Labour under pressure. At the same time as raising fees, the government has been forced to announce the reintroduction of maintenance grants for tens of thousands of students. While this is far from adequate, it is nonetheless a concession to the anger of millions of working-class and young people, who are desperately looking for a political alternative to Starmer’s war and austerity agenda.
Socialist Students members are joining Your Party and will do all we can for it to fight for free education, and a real socialist alternative to the misery that capitalism means for working-class and young people.
Zack Polanski addressed a meeting at the student fringe of the World Transformed event at Manchester Students Union on 11 October.
Manchester Socialist Students member, Robbie Davidson was able to ask a question in the discussion:
“Hi, I’m Robbie from Socialist Students. We welcome many of the things you’ve said Zack. But the Green Party has over 800 councillors across the country. Unfortunately, where the Greens have control of the councils, like in Bristol, they’ve carried out £50 million worth of cuts whilst simultaneously adding £60 million to the council reserves.
“The Green Party has the opportunity to implement a no-cuts budget in Bristol, by using those reserves, alongside the council’s borrowing powers, to fight austerity, not in words, but in action. Building council houses, funding local services, then fighting central government to restore the money. This approach of setting legally balanced no-cuts budgets is in line with the official policies of the local authority trade unions: GMB, Unite and Unison.
“Zack, will you instruct your over 800 councillors across the country, to fight for these no-cuts budgets?”
Polanski’s response: “If councils do no-cuts budgets, lets talk about Bristol in particular, what happens is, they effectively down tools, and then the government comes in and then do all the cuts anyway.
“And the councillors actually have nothing to do about it, and it can be even worse than actually making the cuts in the first place.”
Ultimately, Polanski’s response of hiding behind the threat of government commissioners, is an excuse not to fight back. Why should democratically elected councillors follow orders from unelected commissioners anyway?
Councils defying government austerity, funding services and building council homes, would be hugely popular. That would make it very difficult for the government to get away with taking over the council and ‘doing the cuts anyway’.
Bristol’s Green leader of the council told the BBC last year that “the reality is we have to work within the constraints that are placed upon us.” Why accept the ‘constraints’ of a capitalist system that forces the working class to pay? The Greens’ inability or refusal to fight for an alternative to capitalism will lead to them holding back working-class struggle.
Socialist Students members prepared for the meeting by drawing up a model question that we shared among those of us in attendance to increase the chances of it being asked. This ended up being the correct tactic as, of the six questions asked, only three were taken from the floor. The other three were prepared questions from the chair of the meeting.
Build a new party against the system he represents – fight for a socialist future!
As the people in Gaza starve to death, and thousands are massacred just queuing for food, Donald Trump will be visiting the UK to feast on a luxury banquet with the King. How can we not protest?
That’s why Socialist Students is calling on students to walk out from their schools, colleges and universities on 17 September – the day Trump arrives in the UK for his official ‘state visit’.
Trump wants to turn Gaza into a “riviera”, as a playground for the super-rich. Trump, like Biden before him, has led the US in backing up the Israeli state’s war of terror on the Palestinians, and accepts the Israeli military attacks on Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
How has our prime minister Keir Starmer responded? By handing Trump an invite to meet the King on a five-star, three-day holiday to the UK in September – paid for with the taxes of working-class people! Starmer like Trump has no issue with the Israeli state waging war on the Palestinians.
Young people have to send a message to Trump and Starmer that we won’t stand for their capitalist system, which awards privileges to the warmongers and profits to the super-rich while creating wars, climate crisis, and poverty for the rest of us.
Let’s get organised for a real future. For a socialist world free from war, poverty and oppression.
We can beat Starmer’s Labour
A good future for young people is a million miles from what Starmer’s Labour Party wants. Their main concern is protecting the profits of big business and the super-rich, by making workers and young people pay the price.
But we can beat them back. Starmer has so far led his government into humiliating U-turns over attacks to disability benefits and the winter fuel payment, under pressure from mass opposition. No wonder Starmer wants to stop us fighting back by clamping down on our right to protest.
By building mass movements of workers and young people, we could end all arms sales to Israel, and fight to end the siege of Gaza and occupation of all the Palestinian territories.
Key to this is building a political alternative to Labour. The huge enthusiasm for the initiative of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana to launch a new party shows the potential for this – a mass workers’ party that makes the super-rich pay, not workers and young people.
Defend the right to protest
We’ve seen how Starmer has tried to criminalise the anti-war movement. But he should remember the fate of the former Tory home secretary, Suella Braverman. She tried to ban the Gaza anti-war protests as ‘hate marches’, but she got thrown out – and eventually so did her government! That happened because of mass opposition to the Tories. We can do the same under Labour too.
How can you build the youth walkouts against Trump?
1) Get other people on board!
Who do you know who hates Trump? Who do you know who wants to fight for a decent future for young people? Tell them about the campaign and get them involved in building the walkouts!
You could give out leaflets in your town or city centre to let other young people know about the walkout campaign. If we meet someone who wants to organise a walkout in their school or college, why not give them a stack of leaflets to give out to people they know? Order walkout material here!
On the first day of term, could you organise to give out leaflets to students at your school or college? It could be before class starts, during breaktime, or at the end of the day as people leave – as long as it gets a buzz going from day one of term!
From there, how will you plan to keep up the momentum all the way to September 17? What about a meeting to get everyone organised? Could you then plan some more leafleting? What about putting up posters?
By discussing with other people, you can make a plan for what your walkout will look like. After walking out, could you organise a march from your school/college? Could you all meet up in the weeks before September 17 to make posters or banners, which you could carry as you walk out? What slogans could you use? What protest chants can you think of? What about marching to a nearby park or open space and having a protest there after walking out?
3) Tell us where you’re walking out on September 17!
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.
Adam Gillman, Socialist Students national organiser
Further education is in massive crisis. Teachers and staff leaving, courses cut, high class sizes – the list goes on. Students face a cost-of-living crisis, unable to afford high transport costs and expensive food.
Afterwards, there is the prospect of crisis-ridden university education with mountains of student debt, or low-paid insecure work. Adult college learners have to pay sometimes as much as thousands to study.
Facing what can feel like it’s going to be an increasingly bleak future, stressed from exams, many students face mental health crisis, not helped by the terrible state of mental health services.
Further education has been underfunded for decades. Between 2010 and 2020, per pupil funding fell by 14% in colleges, and 28% in school sixth forms.
Further education faces a shortfall of £400 million. The Labour government has proposed a plan for £300 million, £100 million short, and way less than what’s actually needed for our education.
This is only the beginning. Unless we fight back and win, more attacks will come.
Job cuts
We can’t rule out mass job cuts, like what’s taking place at universities, where uni bosses have already announced over 5,000 job cuts this year.
The University and College Union (UCU), which organises college staff, has launched the ‘New Deal for FE’ campaign, fighting for more funding for further education, and better pay and conditions for staff. UCU is also opposing uni cuts with the ‘Stop the cuts: Fund higher education now’ campaign.
Students and young people should fight alongside the trade unions for properly funded, free education.
FE colleges are typically managed by education trusts, run as if they are businesses, with highly paid executives and board members. Students sit exams run by privatised exam boards too.
Socialist Students calls for colleges, as well as exam boards and all aspects of education, to be brought into democratic public ownership, with elected bodies of staff and students having control.
We fight for every step forward for students to get organised and fight back, including by developing and building student unions in colleges. Existing student unions typically have very limited democratic structures, shackled by college management. But every opportunity should be grasped to put forward what is needed.
The strike wave showed that by fighting back, we can win. When hundreds of thousands of teachers went on strike, they forced the government to give them a pay rise.
And students can fight back too. In London, Pimlico Sixth Form College students went on strike to protest racist uniform rules, and against removing black history month from the curriculum.
Hundreds of thousands of students and young people have come to the streets against the horrific genocidal attacks launched against the Palestinians. This led to the sacking of right-wing racist Tory home secretary Suella Braverman.
We’ve won before
During the Covid crisis, school and college student protests forced the Tories to back down on their plans to downgrade the exam grades for working-class students.
We can fight and win funding for our colleges too. That means fighting for a political alternative to Keir Starmer’s Labour – a democratic trade union-based mass workers’ party that fights for fully funded free education, against all the attacks on young and working-class people.
Funding Not Fees
Socialist Students is organising lobbies of our local MPs, to see where they stand on education funding, and whether they plan to actually represent us against this Labour government.
Will they join our movement for free, fully funded education, demand that big business foots the bill, not students and workers? Or will they stay silent, as this government destroys our lives and futures?
Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser
Socialist Students has stepped up our campaigning for a free, fully funded, and democratic education system.
We’ve protested against Labour’s rise in tuition fees on 25 university campuses. When sixth form teachers and university workers have been on strike, we’ve been on the picket lines.
Now we’re bringing our solidarity to education workers rallying against cuts at the ‘protect education now’ national demonstration, organised by the University and College Union (UCU) in London on 10 May.
The government is fuelling the crisis in education. Labour government ministers parrot their pro-austerity watchword of ‘efficiencies’ – cuts. That’s because the alternative – publicly funding education – is opposed by the big corporations and super-rich individuals that this government serves.
The best way to ‘protect education now’ is to build a mass movement for a real alternative to what this Labour government is offering – for free, fully funded education, paid for by taking the wealth off big business and the super-rich.
Socialist Students has launched the Funding Not Fees campaign to raise the kind of demands a movement could fight for now. Socialist Student members on the UCU national demo will be talking to trade unionists about the campaign, to ask if they would like a representative from Funding Not Fees to speak at their upcoming union branch meeting.
We also think that our movement needs a voice in parliament. That’s why Funding Not Fees campaigners are contacting MPs over the next month. We’ll be requesting that MPs meet with us, and pledge to raise a pro-free education amendment in opposition to any further attacks on staff and students in the upcoming Labour government spending review on 11 June.
Socialist Students 