Uni Gaza encampments – defend and build the movement

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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.

Cost of studying puts working-class people off university

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Socialist Students campaigning against the student cost-of-living crisis

Studying at university has become even more unaffordable for less well-off students, a recent report published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) reveals.

The report calculates that the ‘Minimum Income Standard’ – the minimum income needed to study at university per year, including costs of living such as rent and groceries but excluding tuition fee costs – has risen to £18,632 for those studying outside of London, and £21,774 for those within London. Maintenance loans are able to cover less of these expenses year on year.

According to the National Union of Students, 69% of students are now employed alongside studying to afford their studies, up from 45% in 2022. Students have reported that balancing working, studying, and other commitments – alongside worrying about money – is having a negative impact on their academic achievement.

Access to higher education is further becoming the privilege of the wealthy few, deepening the economic inequality in the UK as working-class and poorer young people are forced to forego education and take low-paid jobs with little chance of long-term progression. Meanwhile, universities are being run like businesses: relying on inflated fees while simultaneously axing degree programmes, underpaying staff, and providing little support to students. Staff participating in the UCU strikes in 2022-23 spoke out on many of these deeply ingrained issues.

The long-term impact of the crisis in higher education is dire. Young people will have fewer opportunities, and industries dependent on qualified graduates will continue to face worker shortages.

The solution is obvious: stop treating education as big business and start treating it as an essential public service, free to use with grants, not debt, to enable people to study. It’s time for a democratically run and high-quality higher education system that is accessible to all and meets the needs of both students and staff.

Socialist Students says:

  • Fight for fully funded free education – scrap and refund tuition fees, cancel student debt, replace student loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation. Make the super-rich pay!
  • Take universities under the democratic control of elected bodies of campus trade unions, students and communities
  • Build democratic student organisations to link up with the campus trade unions and fight for what our universities need
  • Build a new mass party that will stand up for students and workers
  • Fight for socialist change – for democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future

Socialist ideas to build student Gaza protests

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View this article as a leaflet, to take these ideas down to a protest near you.

A fighting programme to build the student encampments for Gaza

DISCLOSE ALL FINANCES!

Universities should open their books to a democratic inquiry by elected students’ representatives and the campus trade unions, with the power to terminate all contracts and research tied to war and occupation while guaranteeing jobs and funding.

END MARKETISATION!

The UK government must fully fund education to disincentivise universities from gambling our fees on dodgy companies and ‘vanity projects’. Scrap tuition fees, cancel student debt, and reintroduce living grants for all students.

BROADEN THE PROTESTS!

Our protests would be strengthened if more students – and workers – joined the action. Encampments could collectively organise:

  • Stalls and leafleting sessions, where we can talk to other students about our action and encourage them to join
  • A rally with speakers invited from local trade union branches, and students from other universities, colleges and schools nearby
  • A lobby of the local MP or councillors alongside other students, workers and trade unionists, to demand they explain their position on the Israeli state’s onslaught in Gaza
  • A march to a local school or college, encouraging students there to walk out and join us for a protest
  • A mass meeting open to all who want to discuss how we can build this movement against war, terror and oppression

SUs SHOULD BE ON OUR SIDE!

Students’ unions are elected to give students a voice – they should call a special meeting, open to all students and staff, to discuss the above demands and other ideas to build our movement. Students need fighting, democratic organisations that represent our interests against management, the government and big business.

WE NEED A POLITICAL VOICE!

Winning a free, democratic and genuinely ethical education system means fighting to take wealth and power off the capitalist elites. Starmer’s Labour Party won’t even begin to fight for this. We need a new workers’ party with socialist policies to end war, oppression and capitalism.

Socialist Students is part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). You could stand with us as an anti-war, socialist student candidate in the upcoming general election.

Find out more

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.

Agree? Join the socialists!

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

See more from our Gaza archives

Build the student protests against Gaza slaughter

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University students across the United States have set up encampments to protest against the brutal onslaught on the Palestinian people by the Israeli state. This comes after the US Government agreed an extra $15 billion for the Israeli military. Students are calling on universities to cut ties with companies making huge profits aiding the Israeli military and its occupation in Gaza.

There has been vicious police suppression against the protesters, showing how cruel the university managements are by encouraging these attacks on students and staff. In Columbia University, for example, students were faced with hundreds of riot police who barbarically attacked protesters and arrested students and staff en masse.

It is not only university management; the pro-capitalist Democratic and Republican parties support and encourage these cruel responses by police and university security.

UK protests

Students here have seen the events in the US and have taken action onto their campuses with solidarity protests and encampments. Students fighting against the war do not have a mass party that represents them either.

In order for students to defend the right to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian people, students need to have their own democratic organisations. They could link up with the workers’ movement and the trade unions. Socialist Party members are fighting in trade unions to bring together workers in the arms and logistics industries to discuss and debate what action they can take against the war – workers in the same companies students are protesting against.

Students, linked to the workers’ movement, could help take the necessary steps for genuine workers’ political representation, to fight against the barbaric war on Gaza and the right to protest on campuses and in the workplaces, but also to fight against the housing crisis, never-ending cuts and exploitation here in Britain.

The fight against war means fighting for socialism. It’s the working-class and students internationally who have the power to bring that change about.

Socialist Students says:

  • Stop the Gaza slaughter – for the permanent withdrawal of the Israeli military from the occupied territories
  • Solidarity with students occupying universities across the US and Britain. Stop arming Israeli state terror!
  • Defend the right to protest on campus. Student unions must lead campaigns to defend any students victimised for protesting against war and oppression
  • Kick out the Tories! But Starmer’s Labour is no alternative. Help us build a new workers’ party with socialist policies to end war, austerity and capitalism
  • For a socialist Middle East and world!

Oxford

Appearing overnight, the newly formed ‘Oxford Action for Palestine’ added Oxford to the long list of Palestinian solidarity encampments spanning the world. So, with leaflets, Socialist newspapers, and six boxes of cereal in tow, we headed down to lend our support and put forward a socialist programme.

The group’s appointed media liaison explained the group is comprised of a mix of students and professors standing in solidarity with their Palestinian counterparts. She said that they don’t intend to leave until their demands are met, which are:

  1. Disclose all finances and open the University’s books
  2. Divest from Israeli genocide, apartheid, and occupation
  3. Overhaul university investment policy
  4. Boycott Israeli genocide, apartheid, and occupation
  5. Stop banking with Barclays
  6. Support Palestinian-led rebuilding of education in Gaza

Plenty of positive aspects to their demands, such as opening the University’s books, are mirrored by their collaboration with students at other universities and with university trade unions. The group has been working alongside the University and College Union (UCU) branch which sent out a statement supporting the camp. Further collaboration was seen with the camp swelling to around 500 as part of a healthcare workers’ vigil.

When asked what message the group would like to send to socialists, the response was very direct. She called on socialists to get involved in their local camps, or build new ones if not already established.

I agree, socialists should get involved, but also use all the levers available to workers in addition to occupations. Only with workers and students acting side by side will their full demands be met.

Rachel Cox, Oxford Socialist Party

Manchester

On the 1 May, students at the University of Manchester (UoM), including Manchester Leftist Action, Youth Front for Palestine, Youth Demand, and Manchester Palestine Action, occupied Brunswick Park as an escalation of a series of short occupations resisting Israel’s assault on Palestine and the university’s ties with arms companies.

When I visited the occupation in Manchester for an interview, they had just renamed it Dr Adnan Al-Bursh Park, after a Palestinian doctor and professor who died in an Israeli prison on 19 April.

Among the groups’ demands is no disciplinary action against students involved. Already a student is facing suspension for their journalistic work exposing UoM’s vice chancellor saying she was comfortable with arms industries being on campus.

So far, other than the threat of suspension, the university has put up no resistance to the occupation. A spokesperson for the group said: “If the university wants to put a possession order through, they’re welcome to, and we will decide collectively what we want to do about that.”

I asked what the group want people to do: “Show your support, be loud, keep shouting about Palestine because the second we don’t, we lose the rich legacy of the Palestinian people.”

Socialist Students calls for students to organise democratically, and link up with the broader workers’ movement, to resist war, occupation and university marketisation. Universities having strong ties with the arms industry is a product of the broader issue of treating education as a market rather than a public service. Governmental funding has been slashed, and so management turn to wealthy companies, exploitative student rents and high international fees to fill the deficit. A socialist transformation of society is the only permanent solution, and if you want to help get us there get in touch with Socialist Students or the Socialist Party and build a mass movement of students and workers to resist war and capitalism.

Sam Hey, Manchester Socialist Students

UCL

Students at University College London have gone into occupation demanding an end to the institution’s support for the Israeli state onslaught on Palestine.

The tent encampment follows an earlier room occupation. UCL management has responded by having security close the campus to the public.

A solidarity protest on Friday 3 May attracted around a hundred across both sides of the gates at short notice. Supporters outside were open to discussing socialist ideas to end the war, with one telling me he had voted for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the London elections the day before.

To defend and extend protest actions like the UCL occupation, students need their own democratic campaign organisations that can draw together the various strands of student struggle and link up with campus trade unions. Join Socialist Students to help us build that!

James Ivens

Warwick

Students and supporters gathered to hear speakers at the Warwick protest from the anti-war and trade union movement. The speaker from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) mentioned the potential role of workers in stopping arms supplies to an illegal war.

As we tried to hand out TUSC election leaflets, a self-admitted prospective local Labour Party candidate in a mask and hood tried to take our leaflets, claiming this wasn’t a political protest!

Warwick Socialist Students

Leeds

Socialist Party members visited the encampment opposite Leeds University Union. While we visited, university staff members also came down to offer support. We explained that we stood in the elections opposing the war on Gaza as part of TUSC, and our election leaflets were added to those being handed to supporters of the occupation.

Student occupiers joined the Leeds TUC May Day march for peace at the weekend which swelled to over 500 strong.

Solidarity with students occupying against Gaza onslaught

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Socialist Students sends our solidarity to the thousands of students occupying universities across the US against the ongoing onslaught on Gaza.

We condemn the brutal police suppression of these protests, and note the rotten role played by university executives and pro-capitalist politicians who have encouraged these attacks on students and staff.

It is not only in the US where students have faced repression for protesting in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

In the UK, the Tory government has given universities the go-ahead to suspend students and student societies protesting against the slaughter in Gaza, like at SOAS. University bosses have hired private security firms to spy on student activists and forcibly break up protests. At Queen Mary University, management authorised security to raid the campus office of the University and Colleges Union (UCU).

To defend against attacks on our safety and right to protest, students need to be organised. We need our own democratic organisations, which link up with the workers’ movement and fight back on all the issues affecting students – including the war on Gaza, but also the cost-of-living crisis, student housing crisis, and cuts to staff.

If you want to organise a protest against the brutal onslaught on Gaza, and defend students against the ramping-up of repressive measures on campus, then get in touch with Socialist Students.

  • Stop the Gaza slaughter – for the permanent withdrawal of the Israeli military from the occupied territories.
  • Solidarity with students occupying universities across the US. Stop arming Israeli state terror!
  • Defend the right to protest on campus. SUs must lead campaigns to defend any students victimised for protesting against war and oppression.
  • Kick out the Tories! But Starmer’s Labour is no alternative. Build a new workers’ party with socialist policies to end war, austerity and capitalism.
  • For a socialist Middle East and world!

See more from our Gaza archives

Nigerian students face deportation from UK – but Surrey students show fightback is possible

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Nigerian international students are in a desperate situation.

As a result of the severe economic crisis in Nigeria, and drastic devaluation of the Nigerian currency, the naira, many students are unable to cover the eye-watering costs of living and studying in the UK.

This crisis was set in motion by the disastrous policies of the Nigerian president Bola Tinubu, whose government last year decided to ‘float’ the naira – essentially allowing the currency’s value to be determined by market forces for the first time in years. This policy instantly led to the biggest-ever collapse in the value of the naira.

300% increase

The naira has lost two-thirds of its value against the pound in less than a year. For Nigerian students in the UK, this means a 300% increase in the cost of tuition fees, rent, and other living costs.

Disgracefully, universities across the UK are moving to exclude Nigerian students who can no longer pay their tuition fees. This would effectively mean deportation, as students would no longer have a sponsoring institution for their visas.

In response to this threat, Socialist Students members at the University of Surrey approached the university’s Nigerian Society, and helped launch a campaign to stop the expulsions.

The campaign began with a joint meeting, which agreed a set of demands aimed at university management:

  • Ensure no exclusions for Nigerian students who are unable to pay their tuition fees
  • Extend the payment period for Nigerian students struggling to pay their tuition fees
  • Allow students to pay their tuition fees at the pre-floatation naira rate of N584.20

As a way to galvanise support for these demands, and put pressure on management, the meeting also agreed an emergency protest for the following week. We decided to march through campus on 22 April, and deliver a joint letter to the vice-chancellor’s office, to put forward our demands, and request an in-person meeting between the vice-chancellor and representatives of the campaign.

Joint meeting hosted by Socialist Students and the UoS Nigerian Society

Protesting works

Our campaign has shown that protesting wins! The university management has now said that it will allow Nigerian students to stay on at the university, if they pay 50% of their originally agreed fee instalment for this term. This is a welcome concession, and importantly gives us time to regroup, and plan the next steps for the campaign.

However, for any student who cannot afford 50% of their instalment, we must continue to demand no exclusions, while also continuing to raise the demand for students to pay fees at the old rate of naira. If necessary, we will organise future protests to back up these demands.

Spread to other unis

Another crucial way to strengthen our campaign at the University of Surrey is to spread these demands to other campuses. This crisis is affecting Nigerian students at universities around the UK. That’s why Socialist Students groups will be reaching out to Nigerian societies around the country to initiate similar campaigns on their campus.

As part of our campaign, Socialist Students members in Surrey have also contacted campus trade unions which, like students, are in battle against management – in their case, over the threat of up to 140 job cuts.

Vice-chancellors cut jobs for the same reason that they charge international students ridiculously high tuition fees – to make up for a broken higher education funding model. That’s why Socialist Students calls for a united movement of students and staff nationally to win fully funded, free education for all.

Sign our open letter to Professor Max Lu, University of Surrey Vice-Chancellor.

Do you want to campaign to end the expulsion of Nigerian students at your university?

Get in touch:

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Read more from our Nigeria archives:

Student cost-of-living crisis shows system is broken

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Fight for free education!

Mohammed Osman, Surrey Socialist Students

Being a student is hard. You constantly have to worry about deadlines and upcoming examinations. Balance that with any extracurriculars you take part in, while also trying to increase your employability – trying to find placements, internships and whatever else you can do to stand out as a worthwhile candidate in the increasingly saturated job market. Now imagine being a broke student which, for many of us, is the case.

More often than not, the student loan you receive is simply not enough to cover the cost of living. I’m ‘lucky’ enough to come from a poor enough family to receive the maximum maintenance loan, which will be £10,277, for 2024-25.

I study in Guildford and, unfortunately for me, there’s no student accommodation available. If I’m lucky enough to find a house on the cheaper side in Guildford, where housing prices rival London, I’ll be left with a total of £1,877 after paying rent. That’s £1,877 to last me an entire year! With the cost-of-living crisis continuing to run rampant, the money I have left will mostly go to bills, leaving me pennies to figure out how to feed myself. I’ll likely be forced to find a job so that I can afford to feed myself and enjoy the little free time I’ll have left after all that. And I’m one of the lucky ones.

Many students whose families are only slightly better off than mine get a significantly smaller amount, often resulting in prospective students being forced out of the opportunity to study. Had the threshold for maximum student loans gone up with inflation since 2016 it would be at £32,535 instead of the measly £25,000 it currently sits at, and more students wouldn’t be in such a serious hole.

“There’s no student accommodation available. If I’m lucky enough to find a house on the cheaper side, I’ll be left with £1,877 after paying rent. That’s £1,877 to last me an entire year!”

The burden of student loan debt also disproportionately affects poorer students, who graduate with £63,000 in debt compared to their wealthier counterparts leaving with £43,600. Wealthier students are also much likelier to get higher-paying jobs in the future, while students like me are much more likely to be stuck with this loan, paying off the interest until it’s eventually written off in my fifties.

This system is broken. It’s unfair and unsustainable and has led to universities caring more about the number of international students they can bring in, whose fees have no cap, and less about the overall quality of education.

We need free universities and living maintenance grants rather than our current system, where universities are run like corporations and top management can make massive salaries, while students are forced to live off bulk-purchased noodles.

Socialist Students says:

  • Fight for fully funded free education – scrap and refund tuition fees, cancel student debt, replace student loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation. Make the super-rich pay!
  • Take universities under the democratic control of elected bodies of campus trade unions, students and communities
  • Build democratic student organisations to link up with the campus trade unions and fight for what our universities need
  • Build a new mass party that will stand up for students and workers
  • Fight for socialist change – for democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future

See more like this

2024 election campaign: Preparing to kick out the Tories and take on a Starmer government

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14 years of Tory rule, and what have students got for it?

The highest university fees in Europe

Maintenance loans that don’t even cover rent

Record student debt

Packed-out classrooms and lecture halls

Unpaid and overworked staff

And it’s not just students who have suffered.

Millions of workers are worse off now than when the Tories were elected in 2010, as wages have fallen thousands of pounds behind inflation. Public services, a lifeline for the majority of people, have been cut to the bone. NHS waiting times have never been so bad, public transport doesn’t work half the time, and entire councils are now declaring themselves ‘bankrupt’.

So it’s no wonder the Tories are so hated. Plagued by infighting and scandals, they are headed for disaster in the next general election, which has to be called this year. According to one poll, just 1% of 18 to 24-year-olds plan to vote Tory in the next general election!

So what do students do in the elections?

Keir Starmer has made clear that his Labour Party will rule in the same capitalist interests as the Tories. He has helped transform the Labour Party back into a ‘safe pair of hands’ for big business, putting capitalist profit-making firmly before the lives of working-class and young people.

That’s why Starmer has abandoned the pledge of former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to scrap tuition fees and restore maintenance grants for students. For the same reason, he has refused to back workers taking strike action for better pay and conditions, including staff in schools, colleges and universities.

While many students will ‘hold their nose’ and vote Labour just to get the Tories out, others will find the stench of Starmer’s rotten policies too much to bear. That’s especially true for the thousands of students who have protested against Starmer’s support for the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

Some may see the Green Party as an alternative. But their record in local government – where Green-led councils have carried out devastating cuts to jobs and services – shows that, when push comes to shove, the Green Party will fall in line and carry out the bidding of the capitalist class.

We need representatives in parliament and the council chambers who point to the massive wealth hoarded at the top of society, and actually fight for it to be in our hands.

Vote Socialist!
Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition!

Solving all the crises facing students and young people – crumbling education, a housing crisis, the sky-high cost of living, climate breakdown, war, discrimination and oppression – means replacing the anarchic, profit-driven system of capitalism with socialism.

We think that includes using the platform of elections to help spread socialist ideas. Workers and socialists standing in elections shows that we don’t have to leave ‘politics’ – ultimately, the struggle for control over society – to different shades of pro-capitalist politicians.

At a time when none of the main parties stand up for us, even a handful of socialist candidates getting elected could be an important step towards a new, mass party with socialist policies, which stands up for workers, students and everyone else currently suffering under capitalism.

That’s why Socialist Students has joined the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). TUSC was set up to allow workers, trade unionists, students, community campaigners and anti-austerity activists of various different organisations to stand under a common banner against the pro-capitalist establishment parties in elections.

As part of TUSC, we are fighting for a working-class, socialist alternative to appear on as many ballot papers as possible in the upcoming local elections and general election.

Fight for socialism

In a socialist system, the banks and major companies that currently dominate the economy would be owned and run democratically by workers themselves, as the ones who actually keep society running day to day, not the capitalist bosses. Resources and technology would be taken out of the private hands of a tiny minority, making it possible to democratically plan the economy to meet everyone’s needs. It would be an international system, joining together socialist governments on the basis of cooperation, not competition.

That is the kind of world that Socialist Students is fighting for. Winning it will require a massive international movement, led by the working class and organised behind socialist ideas. That would then lay the basis for a world free of all oppression, division, climate destruction and war. The job of socialists is to help build that movement, in whatever way we can – including at the ballot box.

Join Socialist Students and help us build a political voice that unites the struggles of students and workers in the fight for socialism.

Socialist Students says:

  • End the student housing crisis
    Introduce rent controls in all student accommodation. For socialist councillors 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 bosses say: ‘increase fees’ We say: ‘Abolish them!’

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Ted Boyle, Sheffield Socialist Students

Behind closed doors, a major university policy change is being discussed and, typically, its not good news! Vivienne Stern, the CEO of employers’ organisation, Universities UK, insists that students finance the gap in university budgets yet again, through ever-higher tuition fees. This is off the back of a broad financial report, which outlines the very real mess that university managements have found itself in, where issues such as an exodus of international students, whose higher tuition than domestic students many universities rely on, have been compounded by unprecedented inflation.

Yet there are no illusions about the popularity of such a move: “Political suicide”, Stern describes it – very hot in Westminster right now. She urges whoever is in power to implement it that they “act quickly” before an inevitable wave of student outrage. Yes, ‘before anyone notices’ seems to be the strategy they’re going for here!

And no doubt such outrage would be fierce: students are already bearing the brunt of major systemic failings. With the confidence built during the continuing wave of agitation for Palestinian liberation, no doubt we would be on the streets in our thousands, as students did over a decade ago the last time tuition fees were tripled.

But why wait for things to get worse? We students don’t need permission to organise and fight to make university life bearable. Stern says raise tuition fees, we say: ‘Abolish them!’ And secure ample student maintenance grants in turn. Keir Starmer, likely future prime minister, U-turned on Jeremy Corbyn’s free education policy. We need a new mass party that will stand up for students and workers.

Socialist Students says:

  • Fight for fully funded free education – scrap and refund tuition fees, cancel student debt, replace student loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation. Make the super-rich pay!
  • Take universities under the democratic control of elected bodies of campus trade unions, students and communities
  • Build democratic student organisations to link up with the campus trade unions and fight for what our universities need
  • Build a new mass party that will stand up for students and workers
  • Fight for socialist change – for democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future

IWD 2024: Fight the backlash against women’s rights!

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FIGHTING THE BACKLASH AGAINST WOMEN’S RIGHTS

From the dismantling of Roe v Wade in the US, which saw the removal of abortion rights from millions of women, to the mass movement in Iran following the murder of Mahsa Amini by the ‘morality police’, a movement which could have brought down the corrupt government. There are many examples of attacks on women and women’s rights being met with protests and resistance.

Here in Britain, when a woman was jailed for taking abortion pills after the legal limit, the anger was palpable. The woman was then released on appeal. This shows that the establishment fears a new generation of women beginning to fight for their rights.

FIGHTING TORY AUSTERITY

Today working-class people across the country are struggling from the cost-of-living crisis, from low pay and growing debt. This includes millions of women who are more likely to have childcare responsibilities and be in low-paid or precarious work. For students, even the highest level of student loans won’t cover the average rents. So how exactly are we supposed to make ends meet?

Tory austerity has seen the gap between the richest and the poorest in society grow. At the same time they have whipped up division as political cover for their disastrous policies. Back in 2011 when they trebled tuition fees to £9k, the Tory universities minister said that women were to blame for working-class men not being able to attend university!

Yet actually it has been Tory policies that has put a decent education out of the grasp of millions. We are crammed into overcrowded campuses; our staff are run ragged and there is little to no extra support. This is the real impact of Tory cuts in education.

University management can’t be trusted. Students and university workers need democratic oversight over all policies relating to sexual misconduct and violence to ensure they are fit for purpose and properly enforced. This would also show that sexism and violence will be properly dealt with and help challenge attitudes on campus.

A STARMER GOVERNMENT

There has to be a general election called this year, which Labour leader Keir Starmer is likely to ‘win’. We say ‘win’ because while he will most likely be the next prime minister, this doesn’t mean that working-class, young people or students have any faith that a Starmer-led government will stand up for us.

In fact, growing layers of big business are moving from supporting the Tories to supporting Starmer’s Labour because they think a Starmer government will help them grow their profits with low taxes and privatisation.

But no government can serve the interests of the rich and big business while also supporting working-class, young people and poor students, so a Starmer government will continue to attack the living standards of ordinary people in this country and internationally. That’s why we need our own independent voice, a new mass political party, which actually represents the interests of workers, young people and students.

FIGHTING SEXISM

Starmer’s government will offer no route to genuinely challenge sexism or the falling living standards of millions of people, mainly women. He says his government will “halve violence against women and girls”. But this is an empty pledge for a government which is sidling up to big business. The best way to fight for the movement needed to challenge capitalism is by getting organised on campus, including around a programme to improve students’ conditions and oppose sexual harassment.

We call for proper street lighting as well as free public transport so that students can go out and get home safely. There are far too many examples of university managements putting their interests before students, who have reported incidents of sexual harassment. We say they can’t be trusted to oversee this process. Instead, students and university workers need democratic oversight over all polices relating to sexual misconduct and violence to ensure they are fit for purpose and properly enforced. This would also show that sexism and violence will be properly dealt with and help challenge attitudes on campus.

But fighting these ideas on campus is not enough. They are perpetuated across society by institutions,
corporations, and the capitalism system. To seriously challenge sexist ideas would mean building a movement against the capitalism system which is fundamentally unequal. Capitalism is underpinned by sexism, oppression and exploitation.

Therefore, we have to build a movement that can fight to take the wealth and power out of the hands of the rich and the elites. It will only be under a democratic socialist plan of production that the material basis for sexism can be removed and all of the ideas and attitudes that go with it can be properly challenged.

Read our article on The Origins of Women’s Oppression and How to Fight it
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