Author: adampd1968

Socialist Students conference prepares for struggle against Labour

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Over 100 students met in the Highfields Community Centre in Leicester for Socialist Students annual conference on 8 February. School, college and university students, as well as young workers in attendance, contributed to a lively and serious discussion. It was inspiring to see newly established Socialist Students groups sending delegations to this year’s conference, including from Hertfordshire, York, Aberystwyth, Manchester, Sussex, and Brunel Universities, joining those societies who have already begun to sink roots.

The conference took place just months after Labour announced an increase in tuition fees for the first time since 2017. Socialist Students launched the Funding Not Fees campaign last autumn in anticipation of the new wave of cuts and attacks on students and staff on campuses in the pipeline from the new Labour government.

The conference discussed and agreed a national campaigning strategy for fighting Starmer’s tuition fee hike, including organising a calendar of campaign action in the run-up to Labour’s summer spending review. Socialist Students delegates discussed building campaigns alongside anti-cuts groups, local trade union branches, tenants organisations, and students’ union officers and course reps. A lively discussion confirmed the need to demand university managements don’t implement any future increases to fees, and to organise lobbies of local MPs to demand they put forward free education amendments in Parliament to the summer spending review – all linked to building a movement to win the funding necessary for the higher education sector as a whole.

Campaigning

That isn’t to mention the campaigns Socialist Students is already leading on campuses, linked to the question of funding not fees. Like for example, Cardiff students against the cuts, campaigning against 400 planned redundancies at Cardiff University. Manchester and Southampton Socialist Student groups are fighting against sky-high student rents. At Queen Mary University, Socialist Students are campaigning for funding gender-neutral changing facilities in the students’ union. And York Socialist Students are protesting against the Reform UK society recently registered at York uni, who offer no solution to the uni funding crisis, just division.

The conference provided a forum for discussion on the instability and chaos writ large by capitalism globally, a system in a state of rot and decay. Trump’s presidency in the US is just another confirmation of this – introducing a fresh dose of chaos into capitalist world relations, and fresh threats of attacks on some of the most oppressed in society and the environment, as well as the working class as a whole.

Mass fightback

But Socialist Students conference also discussed the potential for a mass fightback of students and workers against Trump and all pro-capitalist politicians and parties attempting to play the divide-and-rule game around the world, including here in Britain. In the US, public support for trade unions is at an all-time high, with working-class struggle on the increase. This points towards the key missing ingredient in the situation globally – mass working-class political parties, armed with a socialist programme to unite workers and young people of all different backgrounds in a common struggle against racist division and against the bosses’ system.

This was a feature of the final rally too. The closing rally was addressed by students covering issues from the slaughter in Gaza to the crisis and attacks on democratic rights in Nigeria, to fight the far right as well as fighting for free education and a socialist alternative to capitalism. The rally was pleased to welcome Independent MP for Leicester South, Shockat Adam, who spoke movingly about the slaughter in Gaza and the wave of revolt against the Labour Party for its support for the war on which he was elected.

Socialist Students speakers on the platform welcomed the stance Shockat has taken on the war, and highlighted the role he and the other sitting independent MPs could play in providing a political voice not only to the anti-war movement, but also to the struggles of students and workers on campuses against cuts and fees.

Rally speakers invited Shockat to continue to work with Socialist Students and be part of the Funding Not Fees campaign in Parliament – which includes scrapping tuition fees, cancelling student debt and replacing loans with living grants for students, all funded by taking the wealth off the super-rich, as a step towards building that working-class political opposition to all the attacks of Starmer’s Labour.

Flash points for struggle

Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser, introduced the discussions. We print edited extracts of his speech

The Tories were booted out at the general election last year, suffering their worst ever defeat. When you look back it’s no wonder. Life just kept on getting worse for the vast majority of people under the Tories, all while the richest individuals, the capitalists and the financial speculators, were allowed to line their pockets. Of course, MPs also got a tidy pay rise, not to mention the university vice chancellors, the academy heads, the college executives and others.

The Tories’ fate is a warning to any party that seeks to rule on behalf of an increasingly sick capitalist system, including Keir Starmer’s Labour government. Because at the same time, there is also a growing layer of working-class and young people who are refusing to accept the horrors of this system.

Opposition to capitalist governments is growing globally, including with it the reemergence of working class struggle in many countries, taking strike action at a level not seen in a generation. 

Look at Serbia where there’s an ongoing movement led by students which has so far brought down a prime minister, and the movement keeps going. Similarly, there was the mass movement in Bangladesh last year which brought down the hated prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Revolution

Many will have seen the latest findings from a Channel 4 survey which says 47% of 13 to 27-year-olds in Britain think the “entire way our society is organized must be radically changed through revolution”.

Socialist Students is very clear about what type of revolution we think is needed. We call for the socialist transformation of society to put wealth, resources and technology into the hands of working-class people. And on that basis, draw up a democratic plan for how to meet the needs of all, including the need to protect our environment. Through socialist revolutions taking place internationally, working-class collaboration globally could replace the competition, conflict and war between capitalist states that exists currently.

Socialist Students sets ourselves the target of finding and organising the young people in schools, colleges and universities who want to fight for that kind of socialist world.

This Labour government will prove utterly incapable of meeting the aspirations of millions of workers and young people, laying the ground for numerous battles against it.

Starmer’s first budget in October was proof. Just take the example of colleges and schools. Labour’s spending plans will do nothing to stop the epidemic of cuts and the recruitment crisis in education. The crises of overcrowded classes and students being left without the support they need. £300 million to further education does not touch the sides of what is needed. £1.4 billion to schools will not stop a situation where most secondary schools are not able to meet costs next year.

Corbyn and Starmer

What a difference five years makes. Up until 2019, the Labour Party was under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, who drew the hatred of big business and the capitalist class for putting forward a hugely popular programme of reforms to British capitalism: anti-austerity and including the call for free education for all.

It wasn’t Corbyn the mild-mannered man that struck fear into the hearts of big business, but rather the movement that he had the potential to mobilise.

Unfortunately however, he did not sufficiently mobilise his support base to stand up to the right wing of the Labour Party, the Tories, and the capitalist class behind them. And with that, Starmer has been able to rescue the Labour Party as a ‘second eleven’ for British capitalism. While initially Starmer was compelled to adapt to aspects of Corbyn’s manifesto, all of that has now gone.

There was a glimpse already in the general election, of the potential for the fight to be taken to this government. At the same time as Labour coming to power, five anti-war MPs were voted in based on a mood of disgust against Labour and Tory support for the Israeli state’s war on Gaza. Those five independent MPs included Jeremy Corbyn and Shockat Adam, MP for Leicester South, who is speaking at our rally today.

We would like to see these independent MPs, as well as the now three MPs who are still suspended from the Labour Party, to go much further and to come out as a clear parliamentary voice giving expression to all the struggles that are going to break out against this government.

Gaza

Many will be horrified watching on at Trump’s warmongering rhetoric about turning the Gaza Strip into a ‘riviera of the Middle East’. Socialist Students demands an immediate end to the Israeli state’s war, and a withdrawal, right now, of the Israeli military from all occupied territories.

There are going to be battles on our campuses from students and workers too. Well over half of universities now are making cuts to courses, redundancies to the tune of hundreds. 400 at Cardiff University, for example, is a sign of what is to come elsewhere. Socialist Students has been able to take part in and lead a campaign in Cardiff, we called a meeting on Monday attended by over 70 students and members of staff.

We also have to expect further movements over the climate catastrophe, including for many of those to be spearheaded by young people.

The invaluable lesson that a new generation of young people has learned from the strike wave is that striking works, and nationwide strikes will break out against the Labour government at some stage too.

Right to protest

In the face of growing opposition, Starmer has already shown he has no problem using heavy-handed measures to put down protest. On his watch we’ve seen the heaviest ever prison sentences for direct action given to Just Stop Oil climate activists, as well as the arrest of over 60 on the last national Gaza demo in London. A crackdown on the right to protest can also become a further accelerator of opposition against this government.

These are just some of the flash points where battles will erupt under this government. The discussions at this conference are vital to discuss the next steps to develop Socialist Students as an organisation, and prepare to fight for our socialist ideas in the movements that are to come.

If you want to join this fight, get involved today.

Fighting sexism on campus

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“Since capitalism benefits from perpetuating gender inequality, individuals are constantly being bombarded with ideas that reinforce sexism and misogyny. Sexism is a systemic issue, and requires systemic solutions.

Socialist Students recognises that the fight to end sexism and misogyny is not separate from the fight to bring an end to the capitalist system as a whole and for the socialist transformation of society.“

Liverpool Socialist Students members on a ‘Reclaim the Night’ march last term

Roza Kwiecinska,
East London college student

Universities might champion themselves as places of liberal freedom and advocate for human rights and feminism. But the experience of staff and students is very different. When it comes to providing fair job opportunities for everyone, regardless of gender, and protecting women from sexual assault, universities still fail.

On campus, sexism is a problem that takes many forms. From unfair grading of assessments based on gender, to comments about women students’ appearance, clothing and makeup. There is no inherent biological advantage for male students, but there is a huge underestimation of women students.

Education has the third-highest gender pay gap out of all the UK sectors, worse than manufacturing, mining and retail. Although women make up around half of university lecturers, they are significantly outnumbered in higher academic positions. Only 24% of professors are women. Even fewer women hold top roles, with just 18% as vice-chancellors or principals.

Women students also experience shockingly high levels of sexual harassment and sexual violence, both on and off the university campus. From ‘casual’ teasing to online trolling, harassment and physical attacks.

Campus should be a safe space for all students, no matter their gender, sexual orientation or race. It should not only be a place of learning, but also a place of integration, friendships and discovering yourself.

One terrifying statistic is that 97% of young women (18-24) in the UK have been sexually harassed. Many of these incidents happen in education and learning environments. This shows that right now, for many people, university is not that safe a place.

Research by the Young Women’s Trust found that young women who endure sexism in the UK are “five times more likely to suffer from clinical depression” and that “younger women who had experienced sexism were more likely to report greater psychological distress even four years following a sexist experience.”

University is a place where students are not only stressed about grades, additional jobs they have to do, finding an apartment, but where women are exposed to sexism, leaving long-lasting impacts, including on mental health.

Universities are not doing enough to tackle sexism and sexual harassment. 72% of students don’t know or are unsure about where to report or seek support. When women are brave enough to speak out, many find that it backfires. Women face diminishment or silencing: it is disgraceful that universities in England have used non-disclosure agreements to silence those who have experienced sexual harassment and violence.

Procedures for reporting sexual harassment should be managed by committees led by trade unions and students. This would ensure that the processes are effectively implemented and accessible to those who need them, fostering a zero-tolerance policy for harassment and abuse on campus.

For too long, the universities have overlooked survivors, enabled a ‘rape culture’, and prioritised profits over the safety of students. There has to be increased funding and support for student services, and a commitment to taking action against violent behaviours.

Seemingly small things like improved lighting around campus and housing at night, and accessible transport links to campus are important too. The safety of women students is priceless and should not be compromised. We need a fully funded, free public transport network, so that people can get home safely. Socialist Students has led campaigns to fight for these measures, such as the campaign to save the Liverpool night bus.

It is mindblowing that students not only have to pay huge sums of money for education, but also are exposed to harassment and sexism. Building a movement for free education is essential – scrapping fees and debt and introducing living student grants. We fight for full government funding to provide a safe and free education for all.

These problems are not new. In 2010, the National Union of Students (NUS) published a report finding: “One in seven respondents had experienced a serious physical or sexual assault during their time as a student, 12% had been stalked while at university or college, and 68% had been a victim of one or more kinds of sexual harassment while they were at university.”

Following the report, NUS strategy focused on promoting ‘zero-tolerance’ policies in students union bars. But like the ‘Ask for Angela’ scheme, unions have been accredited without investing in the training for staff and bouncers, or staffing levels, to make it enforceable.

There has also been a focus on educating students about consent, often working alongside university management.

It is essential to focus on education and training; we must confront prejudices, gender stereotypes, and sexist behaviour whenever we encounter them. Though who delivers it and how is important.

However, education alone has clearly not been enough to solve the problem. One problem is that strategies based on ‘raising awareness’ can reduce the issue to just an individual problem or behaviour. Socialist Students understands that individual behaviour is influenced by the broader economic and social system we live in, which is capitalism.

Since capitalism benefits from perpetuating gender inequality, individuals are constantly being bombarded with ideas that reinforce sexism and misogyny. Sexism is a systemic issue, and requires systemic solutions. 

Take social media, for example. We live in a world where the impact of social media is massive. Misogynistic messages are targeted at boys and young men. Social media has been monetised to make huge profits for social media companies as well as individual ‘influencers’. Individuals like Andrew Tate or Ben Shapiro have made millions from using sexist rhetoric to explain the economic crisis and ‘crisis of masculinity’. And they prefer to blame minorities, immigrants and women for the effects of a capitalist world – propping up capitalism through reactionary ideas.

Additionally, access to online pornography has left children and young people, especially young men, with a misguided representation of women, men, and what sexual relationships look like. Porn created under a capitalist system reinforces harmful stereotypes and objectifies women and doesn’t show the act of consent, which is crucial in any relationship. As much as 90% of it is violent – normalising sexual violence against women.

Education can cut through these ideas, but it won’t stop them being promoted in the first place. Socialist Students calls for the social media companies to be brought into public ownership to remove the profit incentive behind the spread of misogynistic and divisive ideas, and for them to be run and controlled democratically. For example, by subjecting algorithms to scrutiny by trade unions, young people, educators and others. The same goes for all of the major corporations and businesses that also profit from sexism.

This is why Socialist Students recognises that the fight to end sexism and misogyny is not separate from the fight to bring an end to the capitalist system as a whole and for the socialist transformation of society.

Stop Manchester uni doubling rents

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Manchester Socialist Students members protesting alongside trade union campaigners last term

Robbie Davidson
Manchester Socialist Students

The University of Manchester has announced that the rents will more than double at three student housing complexes in Fallowfield: Oak House, Owen’s Park, and Woolton Hall.

Following the success of last year’s student rent strike in Manchester, rents in Fallowfield were reduced by 30%, standing out against the cost-of-living crisis.

The complex also hosts the cheapest venue for students in the city by far, Squirrels Bar. Squirrels will also be demolished, chipping away at our ability to socialise affordably.

Labour disgrace

Combined with Labour’s disgraceful hike in tuition fees, the rent hike means students in Oak House will pay almost £5,000 more per year. This is amidst already brutal conditions for many young people, with average expenditure far exceeding student loans.

Food bank use amongst students stands at record highs, as do the rates of self-harm and suicide. But the bosses at the University of Manchester are using the people they are supposed to look after as a tool to close the funding gap left by a decade and a half of austerity.

Socialist Students is demanding that rents are not doubled, and that they remain at a fixed, stable rate. We believe that high-quality, affordable housing must be made available to all, overseen by a democratic body of students, staff, and the community, who decide how our homes are priced.

The rent rises will come after the student blocks are redeveloped. Regeneration of the complex is necessary, it is falling apart. Students face regular infestations, broken amenities, and share a few dozen washing machines between thousands of people.

Multimillion privatisation

Regeneration, while keeping rents stable, is not possible with a multimillion pound contract with a private construction company. But a nationalised building service, under the democratic control of working people, would be able to do that.

We demand that Squirrels, and other affordable venues, are protected, allowing students to relax and socialise, without further straining our cost of living.

This attack can only be fought by a unified response, bringing together students, trade unions, and campus activist groups. To achieve this, Socialist Students is calling for a general meeting that everyone can attend to discuss the fight back – not just to protect a few blocks, but to fight for the funding our universities need, out of the pockets of the super-rich.

Manchester Socialist Students meeting:
How can socialists fight the housing crisis?

Wednesday 29th January, 4pm
University of Manchester Students’ Union, Room 2.1

See also:

Wales uni fees rise – Welsh Labour tails Starmer’s attacks

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Aris Prevost, Cardiff Socialist Students

The Welsh Labour government announced recently that it would be following the Labour government in Westminster by raising university tuition fees. From September 2025, Welsh students in Wales will be charged £9,535 a year, an increase of £285. Fees had already been raised by £250 this September.

The changes bring the university sector in Wales in line with the English system, though key differences still remain.

The university system and its finances have been in the hands of the Welsh Government since the creation of the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) in 1998. The Senedd can set the tuition fee cap for Welsh universities and set out funding and loans that students can get to help with finance.

In England, students receive a tuition fee loan to pay off tuition fees, and a maintenance loan to help with living expenses while at university. The amount a student gets depends on how much their family earns. In Wales, maintenance loans and grants work differently. All students get the same amount, but family earnings determine how much is a grant versus a loan. In addition, maintenance loans in Wales are higher than in England. English students living outside of London get up to £9,978 a year. Welsh students who live outside of London are entitled to £11,720.

Better deal?

Generally, the Welsh government has offered a marginally better deal for students. This would not have been the case were it not for students and organisers fighting to put pressure on the Welsh government.

Now these concessions are coming under threat.

The Welsh government is looking for ways to solve the lack of higher education funding, and trying to solve its own money problems. The solution it is choosing is to charge students more money while allowing universities to cut courses and staff members.

This is why the Funding Not Fees campaign and Socialist Students are so important, to fight back against the cuts that students in Wales have hard fought.

We demand the Welsh government immediately reverse the planned fees increase, and campaign alongside students in England for free, fully funded education with liveable maintenance grants, funded by the super-rich.

Oppose Labour’s tuition fee hike

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Funding Not Fees campaigners in Liverpool on the October 30th day of action

The Labour government has today announced that university tuition fees will rise in line with RPI inflation from September 2025.

In anticipation of a tuition fee hike this term, the ‘Funding Not Fees’ campaign organised protests at over 20 university campuses across the UK on Wednesday 30 October, the same day that Labour announced its first Budget.

The ‘Funding Not Fees’ campaign was launched, with the support of Socialist Students and other campus organisations, to demand that big business foots the bill for education, not students and workers. The campaign calls for fully publicly funded higher education, paid for by taking the wealth off the super-rich, as the means to:

  • Scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt
  • Replace maintenance loans with living grants for all students
  • End low pay, job cuts and the casualisation of higher education workers

Student activists from around the UK will be discussing the next steps for the free education movement at the Funding Not Fees rally, taking place as part of the Socialism 2024 weekend at the Institute of Education in London on Sunday 10th November, 3-4pm.

Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser, said:

“In the space of five years, the Labour Party has gone from pledging the scrapping of tuition fees, to now increasing them. Today’s announcement only confirms that when Starmer talks about his Labour Party governing as ‘changed Labour’, he means a complete abandonment of the anti-austerity policies of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.”

“Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has meanwhile indicated that an inflation-linked fee rise would only be the first step towards a wider overhaul of the university funding system, signalling the potential for even bigger attacks to come on students under this government.”

“Today’s fee rise announcement confirms that Starmer’s Labour wants students to pay even more for education, instead of big business and the super-rich, whose interests this government dutifully serves.”

“Students have to organise now to stop any rise in tuition fees. We refuse to pay an even higher price for the crisis in higher education, which a Labour government helped to set in motion by introducing tuition fees in the first place”.

“Socialist Students has helped to initiate the Funding Not Fees campaign this term as a step to building a united student and workers’ movement for fully funded, free education with living grants for all, paid for by taking the wealth and resources off the super-rich.”

“We will be reaching out to other student organisations and trade union branches in the coming weeks to build for ‘Funding Not Fees’ lobbies of MPs up and down the country, to demand they call for the full public funding students and university workers need – not more cuts, cost-of-living crisis, and fees.”

Come to the Funding Not Fees rally to discuss the next steps in fighting Starmer’s fee attack

Budget fails students

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Labour’s policy? Say nothing!

Socialist Students steering committee statement

University students are suffering again this term. The gap between our maintenance loans and actual living costs has never been higher. Most of us have to work long hours in low-paid jobs just to afford to study. Rents have soared yet again, and courses are being cut at a record number of universities. For the first time ever this year, the proportion of working-class students attending university has fallen – and no wonder.

Labour’s Budget has done nothing to stop the rot. In the 170-page document published by the Treasury today, the word ‘university’ appears just twice – and only to announce some crumbs for the “commercialisation” of research.

The Budget is a continuation of attacks on students and university workers seen under the Tories. It confirms Labour’s immediate approach to the university funding crisis, which is to allow university bosses to continue making savage cuts to jobs and courses.

At the same time, by allocating no new money for universities, it remains a strong possibility that Labour will look at raising tuition fees in the follow-up to this Budget – potentially allowing fees to rise with inflation, to give universities a small funding boost in the short-term.

Faced with a higher education sector in crisis, and the spectre of university bankruptcies hanging over their heads, Labour will try to make students and staff pay, not big business and the super-rich, whose interests this Labour government obediently serves. On the same day as the Budget, the government announced they will be legislating for reform of the fee system next year. Even bigger attacks on students could be in the pipeline under Starmer.

Socialist Students has been preparing for the nightmare facing students and staff this year. That’s why we initiated the ‘Funding Not Fees’ campaign this term, as a step to building a movement for fully funded, free education with living grants for all, paid for by taking the wealth and resources off the super-rich. As part of the Funding Not Fees day of action around Budget Day, Socialist Students protested on over 20 campuses across the UK.

Socialist Students will be reaching out to student organisations, trade union branches and others over the rest of this term to build the Funding Not Fees campaign. We want to organise mass campus meetings, lobbies of our local MPs, and more protests and rallies around the country to demand a socialist solution to the capitalist crisis in education – not more cuts, cost-of-living crisis, and fees.

Join us!

Funding Not Fees

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Funding not fees

Make the rich pay

Isis Smyth, Liverpool Socialist Students

Students are angry. Socialist Students members in Liverpool have spoken to thousands of new and returning university students since the start of the academic year. All we have ever known is Tory cutbacks and attacks. Now any hope that things might be different under Labour is being transformed into anger at Keir Starmer and his government, including over the possibility of a rise in tuition fees.

With Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader for the 2017 and 2019 general elections, Labour’s policy was for free education. Starmer said it best at the recent Labour conference in Liverpool – the Labour Party has “changed”. It is no longer a party for working-class and young people. Continuation of war in the Middle East, two-child benefit caps and pensioners’ winter fuel payment attacks; life under Labour feels a lot like life under the disgraced Tories.

The cost of a university education is already staggering. Fees alone are £9,250 a year for most students, add to that loans to pay for rent, food and the basic necessities. Every year the threat of a debt mountain deters working-class young people from achieving a higher education qualification. And the Budget on 30 October could include raising fees further.

Already, universities like the University of Liverpool have upped food prices on campus and removed their food pantries, which gave students hit hard by the cost-of-living crisis access to free food if they could not afford to do weekly food shops.

This academic year, 40% of English universities are facing a deficit in their budget. And, as usual, the fat-cat vice chancellors and the government want us to foot the bill.

But at the same time, the rich keep getting richer. As horrific as it is, the capitalist system prioritises profit over young peoples’ futures.

University education should be free, fully funded and accessible to all. Maintenance grants should be universal and enough to be able to afford a decent quality of life. Life under Starmer’s Labour is making it clearer than ever that we need a party to fight for the many, not the few – a new mass workers’ party that fights for socialist change.

Socialist Students says

  • No to further fee increases – get organised on campus to fight for free education! Cancel student debt, replace student loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation. Make the super-rich pay!
  • No cuts and no closures! Build democratic student organisations to link up with campus trade unions and the wider working class to fight for the funding our universities need
  • Kick big business off campus! End marketisation of our education. Open up university finances to democratic oversight and control, including by elected students’ representatives and campus trade unions, with the power to terminate all contracts and research tied to war, occupation, profiteering and exploitation, while guaranteeing jobs and funding
  • Students need a political voice. Build a new mass workers’ party that will stand up for students and workers and fights for socialist policies
  • Fight for socialist change. For democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future

Funding Not Fees campaign

Socialist Students is helping to initiate a new national campaign, Funding Not Fees, with the support of other campus organisations, to bring together students and workers in a movement for fully funded, free education – not more fees and cuts.

The Funding Not Fees campaign demands that big business foots the bill for education, not students and workers. It calls for fully publicly funded higher education, paid for by taking the wealth off the super-rich, as the means to:

  • Scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt
  • Stop all cuts and closures on campus
  • End low pay and insecure employment
  • Introduce living grants, not loans
Read more on the Funding Not Fees page

Socialist Students post-election statement

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The Tories have been smashed. Reduced to their lowest vote in a century, they have been punished for 14 years of attacks on the working class, the young and the vulnerable.

There are plenty of reasons for students to be pleased that the Tories are gone. Their broken higher education funding model has left universities at risk of bankruptcy. Average student debt has soared to £50,000, and a collapse in maintenance support has driven a historic student cost-of-living crisis. Facing the fury of students, the Tories have encouraged university managements to clamp down on our right to protest.

But the new Labour government has no intention of improving our situation. Starmer has made clear that his government will stick to the Tories’ fiscal rules. He will use his landslide Labour majority to carry out more attacks on workers and young people. Already the Labour manifesto has promised nothing more than “existing funding” (i.e. Tory austerity budgets) for post-18 jobs and training, and it commits to maintaining wage disparity between 16 to 17-year-olds and the rest of the workforce. It is also silent on fixing the university funding crisis.

No wonder there was no enthusiasm for Labour in this election. According to a poll released just days before polling, half of people planning to vote Labour were only doing so to get the Tories out. The Labour popular vote in this election was lower than in 2017 and 2019, when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, with an anti-austerity programme that inspired hundreds of thousands of young people.

As Socialist Students said at our conference in March:

Although there will inevitably be hope amongst some that a Labour government would mean an improvement to the day-to-day lives of workers and young people, any political party wedded to the capitalist system would be compelled sooner or later to carry out attacks on workers and young people. The stormy economic backdrop to the incoming Starmer-led government, acting within the economic constraints of capitalism, will push it rapidly into confrontation with students, young people, and the working class.

The next Labour government is set to come up against struggles on an even bigger scale than what developed [during the strike wave]. This will not only mean strikes, but struggle among students and young people.

The student fightback against Starmer’s Labour has already begun; it has been a big feature of the student encampments, and of the Gaza anti-war movement in general.

Now let’s take the movement further. We need a mass movement of all students who want to fight for a decent future, and for a free and democratic education system. That means getting organised on campus, linking up with the workers’ movement, and taking steps towards a new mass party that unites workers and young people in the struggle to:

  • Take on a Starmer government
  • Kick out all the capitalist politicians
  • Fight for socialism

Socialist Students has been preparing for the fightback that will continue under a Starmer government. Join us!

Join Socialist Students

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Meet the socialist college student standing in the General Election

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Adam protesting against the slaughter in Gaza

Adam Gillman is standing in the General Election in Reading Central for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). At 18, he is one of the youngest candidates standing in the country. Adam has been active in the local trade union movement for a number of years, visiting picket lines and organising demonstrations.

Adam is a member of Socialist Students, a national organisation fighting for free education and a decent future for young people. He campaigned in his college for students to have the right to discuss socialist ideas.

Adam will be part of an anti-war, socialist challenge to the main parties alongside 39 other TUSC candidates nationally. He will be campaigning for concrete policies to improve young people’s lives, including:

  • Scrapping tuition fees and cancelling all student debt
  • Mass trade union struggle for a £15-an-hour minimum wage with no exceptions for age and inflation-proof pay rises for all
  • A mass programme of environmentally-friendly council house building, democratically set rent controls, and an end to no-fault evictions
  • The right to vote and stand in elections at 16

Adam says: “I’m standing to give a voice to young people who are horrified at the war in Gaza and suffering from the cost-of-living crisis. The main parties don’t work for us, so we need working-class, socialist MPs that will.”

If elected, Adam would only take the average wage of a skilled worker in Reading.

Those interested in getting involved can contact the campaign at 07403 057140.

The campaign has organised a pre-election rally where Adam will be speaking:
Tuesday 2nd July, 7:30pm
Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC), London Street, Reading, RG1 4PS

Socialist Students says:

  • End the student housing crisis
    Introduce rent controls in all student accommodation. For socialist MPs who take on dodgy private landlords.
  • End the student cost-of-living crisis
    Replace maintenance loans with maintenance grants which cover all living costs. Scrap tuition fees, cancel all student debt – make the super-rich pay.
  • Stop war and occupation! End the siege of Gaza
    Workers and young people internationally: unite and fight the capitalist warmongers!
  • Combat climate change
    Carry out a massive switch to green energy NOW! Take the energy companies under democratic public ownership, to be run by workers and not the bosses.
  • Fight for socialism
    For the banks, monopolies and major industries to be owned and run by the working class to meet people’s needs, not the profits of the super-rich.

Uni Gaza encampments – defend and build the movement

On By adampd1968In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser

For a while, it looked as if university managements in the UK were taking a more conciliatory approach to the student encampment movement. However, the arrest of 17 students, and the forceful removal of protesters at Oxford University, have since shattered any illusion that vice-chancellors here would not recourse to the same heavy-handed measures seen in other countries.

It is possible that other universities will follow suit – not least because the summer is a key time for most universities to generate some much-needed income, by renting out rooms and facilities for conferences and other events.

The Cambridge pro-vice-chancellor, Bhaskar Vira, has made clear that management “retain[s] the right to intervene” in the encampments. Other university bosses have made similar veiled threats.

Showdown

In other words, university managements are prepared for a showdown. It cannot be ruled out that the police, or private security forces, will be used in an attempt to physically disperse protesters, like what happened in Oxford.

Students who have participated in the encampments to this point will be determined to continue their action, including into the summer. Protesters have been clear of their intention to occupy for as long as their demands are not met.

In order to continue this movement, and maintain pressure on the universities and the government, students will want to take measures to defend their encampments. This points to the need for democratically organised stewarding by elected bodies of students in the encampments.

Democratic stewarding could include a night rota system, given that there have been small groups of counter-protesters in several places who have waited until dark to make cowardly attacks on peaceful student protesters.

An appeal could also be made to the campus trade union branches, or local trades union councils, which could assist the organisation of stewarding by drawing on the rich experience of the workers’ movement in defending protests.

Reaching out

However, the surest way to keep this movement going is to build it. There is strength in numbers. That means reaching out to students who have not yet taken part in the encampments, and convincing them that they should get involved.

According to a recent National Union of Students (NUS) survey of over 5,000 students, the number one issue facing students is the cost of living. The average maintenance loan now does not even cover the rent, let alone other basic living costs.

The student cost-of-living crisis has been allowed to fester by this rotten Tory government, as they have cut higher education funding over many years. It is this same lack of funding that gives universities an excuse to make income from companies profiting from war.

By boldly raising the need for free, fully funded, democratic higher education, the student encampment movement could target the root cause of university complicity in Israeli state terror, while simultaneously appealing to the mass of students, who equally have an interest in fighting for an end to the current marketised higher education model.

With a general election less than five weeks away, we also need candidates who will back this fight – standing against war and occupation, and supporting free education.

That’s why Socialist Students is part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). We are supporting efforts for the widest-possible working-class, socialist challenge at the election.

Over the coming weeks, we will be bringing this campaign down to the encampments, including organising teach-outs and open meetings to discuss what students should do at the general election. If you want to get involved in our election campaign, get in touch.

Socialist Students says:

  • End the siege of Gaza! For the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli military from the occupied territories
  • For a mass struggle of the Palestinians, under their own democratic control, to fight for liberation
  • For the building of independent workers’ parties in Palestine and Israel, and links between them
  • For an independent, socialist Palestinian state, alongside a socialist Israel, with guaranteed democratic rights for all minorities, as part of the struggle for a socialist Middle East
  • No trust in capitalist politicians, internationally or in Britain. Fight to build a workers’ party in Britain that stands for socialism and internationalism.