Opposing the capitalist Israeli state is not antisemitism
Defend the right to debate the way forward in the Middle East
Socialist Students steering committee
Socialist Students sends our solidarity to members of Linksjugend [‘solid] – the youth section of the German left party Die Linke – who have been subjected to vicious public attacks for their criticism of the Israeli state.
Shamefully, these attacks have come not just from the capitalist media in Germany, but also from the leadership of Die Linke itself.
At the federal conference of Linksjugend in early November, delegates voted in support of a motion on the Middle East that referenced the “colonial and racist character of the Israeli state project… from its beginnings to the present day”.
If anything, this characterisation is vague on the policies of mass expulsion, occupation, and state terror carried out by Israeli capitalist governments ever since the foundation of the Israeli state.
But the motion was still seized upon by the billionaire-owned press in Germany to spread accusations of antisemitism, in an attempt to defame Die Linke and its youth wing, and the global movement in solidarity with the Palestinians that has resurged in the past two years.
Unfortunately, the Die Linke co-leaders have responded by assisting in a witch hunt of its own young members in Linksjugend. They have asserted that “one cannot question the protection of Jewish life” – in other words, claiming that by opposing the Israeli capitalist state, Linksjugend members are undermining the safety of Jewish people.
But the opposite is true. It is the Israeli ruling class, and their staunch defence of an unequal capitalist system based on exploitation and oppression for private profit, which poses the biggest threat to the lives of Jewish people in Israel.
By ramping up war throughout the Middle East, the Netanyahu government has only increased fears and unease of most people living in Israel. Currently one-in-five Jewish Israeli children grow up below the poverty line. That’s before mentioning the genocidal policy of the Israeli government in Palestine, which in two years has claimed over 60,000 Palestinian lives and laid waste to Gaza – intensifying the national conflict and Palestinian suffering, and not bringing greater security to Israelis.
Socialist Students believes that the building of a movement for socialist change in Israel – which would include replacing the current capitalist Israeli state with a democratic workers’ government – will be a key part of the struggle for a socialist Middle East. That is the only way to finally end poverty, war, and oppression in the region. In opposing the current Israeli state in this way, socialists are the foremost defenders of the right of Jewish and all people to a genuinely safe and decent life.
As a socialist youth organisation, Socialist Students defends the right of all young people to discuss and debate a way out of the horror that capitalism means for billions around the globe. That includes the right to debate how the current nightmare in Palestine and the Middle East could be ended. We send solidarity to members of Linksjugend who, by adding to this debate, have faced vicious smears by agents of the capitalist class in Germany, both inside and outside Die Linke.
Come to the Central London demo, Saturday 11 October
Join the Socialist Students contingent!
Meet from 11.30am for speeches before marching – Cleopatra’s Needle, by Embankment Station
Contact 07515921699 or socialistudents@gmail.com for more info
For two years the Israeli state has inflicted genocidal horror on the Palestinians, backed up by capitalist governments around the world, including Starmer’s Labour Party in Britain.
After collaborating in the killing of over 60,000 Palestinians, injuring hundreds of thousands, and reducing the Gaza strip to rubble, Donald Trump and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have the nerve to now pronounce a ‘peace plan’ to end the war on Gaza.
What say do the Palestinian masses have in all this? Where is their right to democratically decide how to organise their society and fight for a future free from starvation, war and repression?
By linking up with the working classes throughout the region, the Palestinians could build a powerful movement to take wealth, resources and control of society out of the hands of the warmongering capitalist elites. That would lay the foundation for real ‘peace’ and the genuine right to self-determination.
Instead there is the devastating prospect of a ‘transitional authority’ in Gaza headed by Trump. This is the man who has talked about turning Gaza into a ‘riviera’ – a playground for the super-rich established through the continued expulsion, oppression and exploitation of the Palestinians.
Trump’s choice for right-hand man is fellow warmonger Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister who led the British invasion of Iraq – not to mention introducing tuition fees, privatising the NHS, selling off council homes, and handing over schools to big business academy trusts.
Clearly the Palestinians have no future in the hands of these capitalist leaders, whose priority is the profit interests of the super-rich and big business, and never the needs of working-class and young people. That’s why the global anti-war movement in solidarity with the Palestinians cannot let up.
Students have launched encampments on university campuses. School and college students have walked out of class to protest the slaughter in Gaza, including hundreds who took part in the Youth Walkouts against Trump when the US President came to the UK in September.
Socialist Students is calling on students to join our contingent on the next National March for Palestine on Saturday 11 October. We think young people need to get organised in the fight for socialism as the only way to end all war and deliver a decent future for all, in Britain and around the world. Joining our contingent will be a good starting point!
And after the contingent, get involved with Socialist Students in your school, college or university to continue the fight for a socialist future. Socialist Students is joining Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ this term to fight for an anti-war socialist voice for working-class and young people. We will also be campaigning for the funding needed for our education, including supporting workers’ strikes against redundancies and cuts to our courses.
Hundreds of school and college students walked out to protest Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK on 17 September. On the thousands-strong protest through central London, the Socialist Students contingent was by far the most lively, youthful and politically bold. Our chants and slogans were not just drawing attention to Trump and the role he is playing, but also to Keir Starmer’s complicity in war, genocide, and defending the profits of the billionaires.
In Liverpool 75 walked out, there were 25 in Leeds, 15 from a Sheffield sixth form, 30 from one college in Nuneaton, 25 in Preston, and many more at youth protests around the country. The Trump walkouts showed that we can take matters into our own hands and have a voice when we organise and fight back.
Our walkouts forced their way into the national media. The government had been doing their best to keep Trump’s visit under wraps, knowing the anger it would provoke. But our campaign got onto ITV and BBC, into the Independent newspaper, even over the pond into Time magazine – which has twice named Trump ‘Man of the year’!
Right to protest
Hundreds walked out against Trump, but it would have been many more if not for the police being called on students to try to intimidate us into not exercising our right to protest.
In west London, about a dozen police officers were waiting at the tube station to try to intercept students travelling to the central London demo. In south London, a headteacher called the police on us, as well as ripping up leaflets that students were being handed as they were going into school.
In east London, hundreds of students spilled out into the playground at lunch, ready to walk out and join the protests in central London. They were prevented from doing so by a police van as well as about a dozen police officers at the school gates.
In north London, headteachers in Enfield were communicating with each other and the police to try and clamp down on student exercising their right to protest. That didn’t stop nine students walking out at one school.
Despite all the obstacles, when we are organised, we can overcome all the barriers put in our way. We can have a say over what goes on in our lives.
Schools, colleges, sixth forms… our entire capitalist education system is designed to strip away young peoples’ confidence to take action: restrictive rules try to teach us from a young age to obey authority; there is a complete lack of a say over our curriculum and what we get taught; gates are locked to keep us in all day, trapping us in prison-like conditions; students are thrown into ‘isolation rooms’ as punishment, facing a wall in solitary confinement conditions. All this is designed to make us feel powerless. And it’s not accidental.
This capitalist system we live under is about making profit for a tiny few at the top of society, a super-rich minority, at the expense of everyone else. It means mega wealth for the billionaires while poverty, war, and climate destruction become the norm. Capitalism will look for all the ways it can to maintain this unequal arrangement, that includes trying to drill into us from a young age, while we are in school, that we can’t fight back to change things.
The youth walkouts against Trump were a way to show that we can fight back. We sent a clear message to Trump, Starmer and the capitalist class that we won’t accept their agenda.
Build students unions
As a first next step, Socialist Students is calling on young people to build our own students unions. These can be spaces where students in a school or college can come together to share ideas about how to fight back and to make a plan of action. Why not organise a meeting of everyone who is interested, including those who joined walkouts and other supporters?
The meeting could take place in the playground, or a quiet indoor space, or there might be sympathetic teachers who are be open to allowing us to meet in their classroom, for example. A starting point could be to find out which teachers are trade union reps for the education unions in your school.
Then the meeting can decide collectively what campaigning issues to take up. There might be anger at what is going on in the world – war, poverty, climate catastrophe. But locally there might be anger at canteen prices, the cost of school trips, uniform policies… At some schools, students have been told that they are unable to wear political badges, for example.
Once a main campaigning priority has been agreed on, one idea could be to write a short protest letter setting out the issues, getting as many students as possible to sign it, and to take a list of demands to the headteacher. That pressure could be increased by organising a protest at lunchtime or outside the gates after school. A march to the local council offices could lobby a meeting of local councillors to ask what they are going to do to address the issues. There could also be a lobby of a local MP.
Students in east London prevented from protesting plan to write to their local MP Dianne Abbott to ask for her support in demanding the right to protest.
Socialist Students groups can also get together to attend protests outside of school or college. Socialist Students will have a contingent on the 11 October Gaza demo in London, for example. In Liverpool on 27 September, there is a protest outside of Labour Party conference, which Socialist Students will be attending – exposing all of the ways in which the Labour government is attacking our futures.
A new party fighting for our future
Events across the whole of society shape the conditions which we grow up in. We have a Labour government hiking uni fees, cutting funding to schools and public services, that has attacked benefits for disabled people including getting rid of PIP for under-18s.
Outside of schools and colleges, young people need a political voice. Many have been enthused by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s ‘Your Party’. It is polling highest among 18 to 24-year-olds. Socialist Students calls for a new mass workers’ party that fights for a future for young people.
As leader of the Labour Party, Corbyn called for free education, mass council house building and a fully funded NHS, and many other policies to make the super-rich pay. Now young people again have a chance for a political party to fight for those things. There is the opportunity for a mass party that puts across an anti-war, socialist alternative to Labour, as well as to Reform. Socialist Students says any new party should be a democratic socialist party. We are holding meetings on 50+ university campuses across the country to discuss that.
Young people need a voice – our own students unions organising to fight in our collective interests. And a political voice, a party that links our struggles to those of other young people and the working class as a whole.
We have to fight for a future. That is linked to the struggle for a socialist society as an alternative to capitalism. That would be a system where the banks and major industries are owned and run by the working class, democratically discussing and collaborating to draw up a plan of how to use the wealth and resources in society to meet the needs of all. Internationally, that would lay the basis for an end to war and climate disaster. Join Socialist Students to fight for a future. Fight for socialist change.
Student Justice for Palestine held a peaceful protest at the University of Arts London (UAL), protesting against our university’s compliance in the current genocide of Palestinians. The university has continually ignored and blocked student demands that our tuition fees should not be used to fund war and arms deals.
Protesters temporarily occupied a space on Chelsea campus on 17 February to declare that the university chancellor Clive Myrie cannot and will not get away with silencing students and staff. Just two hours after the occupation, students received verbal threats from the management to vacate the premises by 9pm, or face disciplinary action.
The purposeful use of vague terminology of the code of conduct, and heavy police and security presence is part and parcel of the university’s intimidation tactics. UAL has a history of abusing its code of conduct to silence its students and staff from expressing their freedom of speech and right to protest.
After an emergency rally to protest university’s intimidation tactics, it was decided that we would end the encampment, as this was in the best interest of international students, who are here on visas, and already facing disciplinary action for peacefully protesting.
Occupation
Student Justice for Palestine has stated that it will continue to hold space on the campus, hosting readings, discussion, and other pro-Palestine events over the next week until its meeting with the university chancellor and other board members.
This is where they will again negotiate student demands on divesting from Lvmh, Lloyds Bank, and L’Oréal, changing its current definition of antisemitism that protects Zionism, and to protect and support its Palestinian students.
UAL Socialist Students stands in solidarity with Student Justice for Palestine. We condemn the university management on their consistent refusal to cut any ties with big companies who are complicit in the slaughter of Palestinians.
We support the demands that students have put towards our university. And we support our fellow students and staff’s right to strike, protest, and occupy as means of getting these demands met.
We should decide
We call for elected committees of students and staff to have democratic control over how our money is being spent. We should all be asking ourselves why do our universities continue to invest and collaborate with arms dealing companies in the first place?
Keir Starmer’s Labour government must tax the super-rich, and create a fully funded education system that is of higher quality, and accessible to all students of all backgrounds.
Socialist Students believes that this is all comes to a much larger issue that needs a systemic change – socialist change. We need a new mass workers’ party that stands on an anti-war, socialist programme – fighting for free education, decent, affordable housing, and against war and austerity.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Disclose all finances and open the University’s books
Divest from Israeli genocide, apartheid, and occupation
Overhaul university investment policy
Boycott Israeli genocide, apartheid, and occupation
Stop banking with Barclays
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.
Socialist Students 