How students can build a movement to stop the slaughter in Gaza

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We have witnessed a year of brutal slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, and increasingly in the West Bank too.

It has exposed to the world how capitalist politicians do not value human life, despite what they say about wanting an end to the conflict. Many people here in the UK have felt anger at the situation in Gaza, and taken to the streets to protest.

Many students have also taken things into their own hands, protesting against their university bosses, calling for divestment from arms companies and companies that prop up Israeli state terror.

School and college students have organised walkouts and protests in solidarity with the Palestinians. Towards the end of last term, student encampments were organised up and down the country, exposing universities’ links to arms companies and banks. Socialist Students members were involved with many of these.

We fight for the 7-million-strong trade union movement to be central. It is the threat of workers getting organised and fighting back that terrifies the capitalist world leaders, including in the Middle East.

It is a mass movement of workers and poor people, democratically organised and fighting for socialist change, in Palestine and across the region, that can point the way forward to an end to war and national oppression.

We call for an end to the marketisation of higher education and an end of the tuition-fee funding model. Universities are becoming ever more reliant on money from big business, including from arms companies such as BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, due to cuts in funding from government. University education should be free for all, and fully publicly funded by making the super-rich pay.

The huge determined protests against the slaughter in Gaza have defied attempts by politicians and police to intimidate them. That defiance led to the hated Suella Braverman being sacked as home secretary.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners standing in the general election had a huge effect in a whole number of constituencies. Jeremy Corbyn was reelected, in addition to another four anti-war independent MPs.

That must be built on to deliver the new workers’ party needed to give a voice to the anti-war, socialist opposition to Starmer. Student protests this term can have a big effect too – and Socialist Students is determined to make them as effective as possible.

If you want to be part of the fightback, get involved!

What Ideas should students get organised around?

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 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.

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 government won’t even begin to fight for this. We need a mass workers’ party, with a socialist programme to end the capitalist system that breeds war and oppression.

MAXIMISE OUR STRENGTH!

Our movement would be strengthened if more students and workers joined. Socialist Students is calling for students to join us with:

• Mass meetings open to all who want to discuss how we can build a movement against war, oppression and capitalism
• Stalls and leafleting sessions, where we can talk to other students about any upcoming protests and 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 our 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

See more of our campaigning:

Build a movement to smash racism!

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Tens of thousands of students and workers came out onto the streets to confront attempts by the far right to mobilise racist riots. This magnificent show of solidarity shows the potential to build a movement that can smash racism – and the decades of cuts and rising poverty.

Desperate to divert growing anger at their system, capitalist politicians of all varieties and backgrounds have used racist scapegoating of immigrants to try and divert the blame for the crisis of their system. But, as Malcolm X said: “you can’t have capitalism without racism.”

Reform’s Nigel Farage is one particularly odious politician who consistently spouts divisive racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric. He is the highest earning MP, netting a million pounds a year in addition to his MP’s salary, all the while peddling the fraud that he is an anti-establishment ‘man of the people’.

But to focus entirely on him and his party lets the rest of the capitalist politicians off the hook. The Tories spent the last years in government talking incessantly about migrants on small boats and taking part in the expensive political theatre of Rwanda deportation flight plans in the hope of diverting blame and anger for falling living standards away from themselves.

The cost-of-living crisis, high tuition fees and student debt, low wages, high rents, the collapse of public services. These are the results of funding cuts and privatisation carried out by both Tory and Labour capitalist politicians serving the interests of big business.

But the Tories’ crushing general election defeat showed the huge anger at the attacks on living standards of the working class. It followed the huge strike wave and mass protests against the war on Gaza which have brought students and workers together in a common struggle.

Starmer has said there is ‘little difference’ between him and the Tories on immigration, and continues to support the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. The new Labour government is committed to a continuation of privatisation and cutbacks to public services, making the working class pay for the crisis rather than taking the money off the super-rich.

Those who defend capitalism want to divide the working class including by using racism. That weakens our ability to unite and fight against them and the rotten profit system they defend.

This latest surge of racist violence serves as a warning as to what can develop under a Labour government which is continuing with the Tories’ austerity policies – already cutting pensioners’ winter fuel payments and promising billions of pounds of further cuts, including to the education sector and universities. The election of five Reform MPs is a warning too.

The only way to successfully cut across far-right ideas getting a platform is for the workers’ movement to build mass struggle to fight for a socialist programme that unites workers against the bosses – for jobs, homes and public services for all.

If the 6.5 million-strong trade union movement was to lead a struggle for those things – bringing together workers and young people from all backgrounds – it would give an expression to the huge anger and discontent that exists under the surface in society.

The task of defending our communities from racist attacks, strengthening the level of organisation of students and the working class, and developing a workers’ political voice in the form of a new workers’ party– all go hand in hand.


The effect of a political voice that stands for the interests of workers and young people not the fat cats was glimpsed in the 2017 general election. It is estimated that one million UKIP voters switched to supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s programme of cutting tuition fees, council homes, security at work, and more funding for the NHS and other vital services.

Socialist Students campaigns for students to get organised on campus to fight for all of this. We want to build a united movement of workers and students to overthrow this rotten system of capitalism for good.

We fight for the socialist transformation of society, based on bringing the commanding heights of the economy and the banks into democratic public ownership. Under the democratic control and management of the working-class majority, society’s wealth and resources could be planned to meet all of our needs. That is a necessary component of the fight to end racism and all forms of oppression and inequality for good.

If you want to fight back against racism, war and inequality, then join Socialist Students and get organised!

No to racism and the far-right! Build a united student and workers’ movement for good jobs, homes and public services – including free education for all!

Fight to build a political voice for the working class – a socialist alternative to Labour and all the capitalist parties. You can’t have capitalism without racism!

Fight for a socialist world free from exploitation and oppression!

Join the socialist opposition to Starmer and capitalism!

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A lot has happened since last term.

The Tories have finally been booted out after 14 years of attacks on young people and the working class.

But Labour has wasted no time showing it has nothing to offer the millions of people in Britain who are desperate for something better.

A new Labour government did nothing to prevent racist riots stoking fear and division this summer.

While MPs holidayed on their £90k salaries, the job of routing far-right violence fell to thousands of anti-racist protestors in cities and towns across the UK.

But this government will only foster more racist scapegoating and division. None of the pro-capitalist parties – including the Labour government – have anything positive to offer, because they all stand for a capitalist system that puts the profits of a super-rich few before everything else.

They all want to divide us – with racism, sexism, LGBTQ+phobia and anything else they can find – to weaken our ability to unite and fight against them and the rotten profit system they defend.

But none of that can stop fierce opposition growing under this Labour government.

Hundreds and thousands of young people have protested against the Israeli state’s genocidal war on Gaza in the past year, with students launching our own protest encampments in universities up and down the country. That fight is going to continue this term.

Starmer has already promised that “things will get worse” on his watch. His government is reporting a £22 billion ‘black hole’ in its finances, and it wants us to foot the bill through cuts to our services, like schools and the NHS. So there will have to be opposition to these attacks too.

Workers will have to strike for decent living conditions under Labour, just like they did on a massive scale in the final years of the Tory government. Labour has already been forced to give pay rises to NHS workers and teachers – they were scared that if they didn’t, then those workers would strike against them! It all goes to show that when we fight, we can win – and that students can strengthen our potential to fight back by linking up with the workers’ movement.

Ultimately, we need to channel all these different struggles – against racism, and war and occupation; for decent pay, and good-quality services and homes for all; for a safe and sustainable climate – into one massive movement that fights to end capitalism and build a socialist world free from exploitation and oppression.

A world in which society’s wealth and resources would be democratically owned and planned by the working class to meet the needs of all, instead of to make profits for the few.

That’s what Socialist Students is fighting for from day one of the new term. If you want to build the socialist opposition to Starmer and capitalism, join us!

PREPARE FOR  LABOUR ATTACKS ON UNI FUNDING

Starmer and his ministers are considering raising tuition fees to plug the gaping hole in higher education funding – a far cry from 2019 when former leader Jeremy Corbyn was promising to abolish them!

If Starmer goes ahead with increasing tuition fees, or any other attack on universities, then there will need to be mass student meetings held on every campus to discuss and democratically agree a concrete plan of action to organise and defend our futures.

Socialist Students would help to organise such meetings and build protests wherever we can. We also campaign as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) for steps to be taken towards building a new mass workers’ party that gives a socialist alternative to Starmer’s Labour and all the pro-capitalist parties – including standing for free education.

Read our full article on the university funding crisis below:

Uni funding crisis: Prepare for struggles ahead

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Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser

The risk of universities going bankrupt made it onto Keir Starmer’s pre-election ‘shitlist’ of major immediate challenges facing a Labour government.

Will Starmer’s Labour government raise tuition fees? Will it be the first to let a university go bankrupt on its watch?

Following the election of the new Labour government in particular, university vice-chancellors and higher education thinktanks have wasted no time speculating on what a university bankruptcy could mean – and setting out their views on what an adequate government response would look like.

Clearly a university going under would have catastrophic consequences. In many towns and cities, universities are one of the biggest employers, often second only to the NHS. Many thousands of jobs would be lost. Potentially tens of thousands of students would be without a course. There are fears that if one university went, it would trigger a domino effect throughout the sector.

That’s why Labour would be likely to intervene – for example, by providing emergency funding, with strings attached. In 1987, Thatcher’s Tory government found £20 million to save the then University College Cardiff, but only while mandating its takeover by the neighbouring University of Wales institute of Technology to create Cardiff University.

At the same time, state intervention to save a university would raise the sights of workers and young people to demand similar intervention; for pay rises, public service funding and more.

Labour would much rather take short-term measures to prevent the chaos of a university bankruptcy being posed in the first place.

A recently published review by the Office for Students (OfS) – the university regulator – concluded that financial challenges are “rapidly crystalising” with budget deficits, redundancies and course closures. Failure to manage these risks will “undoubtedly lead to a market exit, potentially in the near term, of one or more large providers”.

The government has accepted the recommendations of the review, putting out a statement that “the role of the Office for Students will be refocused to prioritise the financial stability of the higher education sector”. Crucially, however, the government is yet to respond to the recommendation to “clarify its position on market exit”. The University and College Union immediately put out a statement calling for new funding for the OfS to be able to directly intervene to support struggling universities. Key for students and workers is not just more funding, but control of how the money is spent.

How did unis get to this point?

In 2017, the Tories were forced to freeze tuition fees in England at £9,250 a year – a concession made under pressure of Jeremy Corbyn’s call for free education.

The real value of tuition fees has fallen dramatically due to inflation, to the point that universities now lose roughly £4,000 on average for every UK undergraduate.

This funding shortfall has driven a trend towards universities relying on international students, in effect using these students’ much higher tuition fees to subsidise the cost of teaching UK students.

However, international student applications are reportedly down by around one-third on last year. This recruitment crisis is a major reason why 40% of universities are predicted to run deficit budgets this coming year. The real value of higher education funding is at its lowest point since fees were trebled in 2012.

What will Labour do?

With Starmer abandoning his pledge for free education last year, Labour could complete the U-turn by increasing tuition fees. New education secretary Bridget Phillipson has more than once refused to rule this out when asked. New Labour linchpin Peter Mandelson went as far as calling for an “immediate uptick in fees” at a reception in Westminster this July.

Unfreezing the tuition fee cap would mean fees rising every year with inflation. That was how it was supposed to be, before Corbynism became a meddling factor in the plans of capitalist politicians.

Another option is to undo the visa restrictions brought in this year by the Tories, which prevent international students from bringing family members to the UK.

Labour’s approach may well be a combination of these things. But whatever they decide, clearly it will not involve any substantial increase in direct public funding for higher education, let alone free education. Phillipson has previously boasted about her plans for universities that could be implemented “without adding a penny to government borrowing or general taxation”.

And Labour will also want to cut back on the indirect public funding given to universities in the form of student loans. Despite the Tories’ attempts to overhaul the loan repayment system, most student loans continue to go unpaid and become government debt. The current figure for outstanding student debt is about £250 billion, equivalent to over 10% of GDP.

Appearing on Sky News last week, the new Labour skills minister Jacqui Smith declared that “it’s first of all in the hands of universities to take the action necessary in order to be as efficient as possible”. This is Labour’s warning to universities: “Even if our government does something on university funding, you will still have to make cuts if you want that money to go far enough”.

Fight Labour attacks

Overall, it looks like Labour will squeeze students for extra funds, which they hope will be enough to stave off bankruptcies in the short term, but not enough to remove the incentive on universities to make ‘difficult decisions’ over the longer term.

Any attempt to make students pay higher tuition fees would be met with widespread anger, not just among current university students but also school and college students planning to attend university.

Given that over half of under-30s in Britain now go to university, an attack on university students would be widely seen as an attack on young people’s futures in general.

There is already huge discontent among millions of young people, who see little to nothing positive about society as it is currently organised. They see themselves growing up in a world that allows uncontrolled war, poverty, climate degradation – all overseen by a tiny elite at the top, who get richer and richer while everyone else gets poorer.

In this context, the announcement of even a small fees increase could spark explosions on campus and among young people in general. Students would have to respond by calling mass meetings in every university, as well as colleges and schools, to collectively debate and discuss how to build a movement to fight Labour attacks on education, on young people and the working class as whole.

When Tony Blair introduced tuition fees in 1998, it sparked a big student movement. When the Tory-Lib Dem government trebled fees in 2010, it was the same again.

In 2024, the marketised fees model of higher education is in limbo. Labour want to keep it on life support while making students and the working class pay; socialists have to fight for a real alternative – a free and fully funded education system, run democratically by students, university staff and the local community for all to enjoy, as part of a socialist society organised to meet people’s needs, not profit.

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 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

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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!

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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.