Fight for socialism against the dawn of the living dead jobs
Hannah Ponting, Liverpool Socialist Students
It’s no secret that an unemployment crisis has been looming over Britain for years.
The employment rate has been falling for the past two years, exposing the fragility of the capitalist system.
Young people entering the job market are particularly affected by this crisis. It has been reported that, for some entry-level jobs, as many as 141 graduates are competing for a single job. At the same time, one in seven young people are now currently unemployed.
This figure doesn’t even take into account the thousands of people trapped in precarious employment circumstances, such as those in exploitative zero-hour contacts, with no certainty as to their income from one month to the next, and little-to-no protection in case of sickness.
As we enter 2026, the situation is set to worsen. Economists warn that an increasing number of so-called ‘zombie firms’ are likely to collapse, as increased energy prices, an end to cheap credit, and increases to national insurance contributions ‘kill’ them off.
For defenders of capitalism, the closing of zombie firms may be masqueraded as good for the economy, but it is ultimately workers that bear the price of their collapse with mass redundancies.
This incoming crisis is not the result of bad managements or unfortunate timing. It flows directly from the short-term, profit-driven logic of capitalism.
So to fight this crisis we have to fight against capitalism itself. Workers and young people can fight for a socialist future that guarantees jobs, pay and conditions and offers real possibilities for retraining. We should demand that any failing industries be nationalised under democratic workers’ control, and take the economic power held by the bosses into our own hands to plan to provide a decent job, housing and standard of living for all.
Two Herts Socialist Students members organised a sit-in in December to advocate for a Palestinian student, who had been denied an offer by the higher-ups at the University of Hertfordshire, for discriminatory reasons.
The student had been granted a series of phone-call interviews to assess their English language abilities, rather than sitting a conventional English language test, due to their circumstances living through the genocide, and currently living in a camp in Gaza.
No management understanding
However, these interviews put them at an unfair disadvantage. Management failed to show any understanding for the student’s lived experiences:
Damaged infrastructure in Gaza, causing poor phone reception
Immense pressure of their family’s and their own future at stake
Inappropriate and inconsiderate questions, such as “what’s your favourite food?”, and “what do you like to do in your spare time?” to someone suffering through starvation and frequent displacements
Herts Socialist Students recognised this institutionalised racism against international students, and decided to take action, acting as last-minute unofficial advocates for the student’s case.
By sheer luck, we met the heads of the uni’s International Office in person. They told us there was nothing we could do. We informed them we would not leave until we had the opportunity to advocate properly.
After several meetings that day, we convinced them to give the applicant a third interview, with questions that were trauma-informed, and took their circumstances into account. They passed with flying colours.
Mass movement
The fact that two students were able to have such a large impact on their decision highlights the sheer disregard for the lives of international students, which was demonstrated with the original decision. The uni insisted it was not negotiable, until it was.
We can stand up to oppression, and unchallenged unelected bureaucrats on campus. If only two students were able to have such an immediate impact, the possibilities for mobilising on other issues are huge.
Student life leaves a lot to be desired right now. Before we even make it to university, tuition fees get hiked year by year. When we’re on campus studying, it’s under precarious conditions with cuts to resources and staff. When we get home from campus, our housing is untenable, leaving us vulnerable to exploitative landlords. When we graduate, obscene student debt burdens us, and youth unemployment is rising.
And every step of the way, we are onlookers to a world in crisis. Trump’s imperialist agenda threatens further conflict and war; it fuels further economic instability which the bosses will try to make the working class and young people pay the price for; the ravaging consequences of climate change continue to worsen. And here, Keir Starmer’s government continues to attack workers and young people. Starmer dined with the King and Trump at Windsor Castle in September, while thousands in Gaza starved.
That is why, across uni campuses, colleges and schools, Socialist Students is fighting back. We are campaigning to defend our education from government and bosses’ attacks, and fighting for decent housing, free education and socialist change.
It’s clear to see why capitalism is losing favour among younger generations. It is a system which values profit over people, and that concentrates wealth into the few, depriving the many. It offers no promising future for young people.
That’s what was behind the initial enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party, as well as for new Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s ‘eco-populist’ platform against inequality and injustice.
Socialist Students is an organisation in which students can come together to explore socialist ideas and get involved fighting for them. We organised walkouts of school, college and uni students to protest against Trump’s state visit to the UK last year. We have led the fightback for fully funded free education under the Funding Not Fees campaign. We have fought alongside our teachers and other education staff defending jobs and our education. We have taken part in the mass protests against the slaughter or Palestinians in Gaza. And we are part of the fight for a new mass party that fights for young people and workers, and for socialist change.
On 14 February, the Socialist Students National Conference will take place in Manchester. It will discuss a new constitution to prepare for the road ahead of widespread youth and student struggles and protests.
If you want to fight for your future, for an alternative, this is the opportunity to express yourself and be heard.
The genocidal siege of Gaza. Climate breakdown that threatens the existence of life on our planet. Governments whipping up racism, sexism, and all forms of division. Attacks on the right to protest and more authoritarian laws. There is no shortage of issues pushing students and young people into the fore of mass movements, taking action for an alternative.
Internationally, the past year has unleashed a wave of mass protests and uprisings spearheaded by young people, from Indonesia to Nepal, Madagascar to the Philippines. In Britain, young people have continued to march in our hundreds and thousands to demand an end to Israeli state terror and war in the Middle East.
But despite the heroic preparedness of young people and the working class to fight back, the politicians, institutions, and the ‘profit-before-all’ system they uphold – capitalism – remain in place. And so the nightmare of war, poverty, and climate destruction continues, as our futures are sacrificed for the profits of a super-rich few.
What needs to be done to put an end to this nightmare? That is the key question that the Socialist Students conference 2026 is setting itself.
Socialist Students is a democratic, national organisation of students fighting for a socialist alternative to capitalism. We are active in schools, colleges and universities across the UK. Our conference is open to all students and young people who want to discuss, debate and make a collective plan of action for how to build a socialist youth movement in Britain today.
There will be plenty to discuss, including:
How can we build a mass socialist party to give students a voice in the fight against Labour and Reform? What role could Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party play? What about Zack Polanski and the Green Party?
How can students support workers in education fighting against cuts and low pay, and build a united movement to make the super-rich pay for the funding we need?
Why are so many student unions not on our side? And how can students build democratic student organisations that actually fight in our interests?
Climate change has got the world hurtling towards disaster. The disarray flowing from capitalist governments across the globe has left a trail of destruction, with wildfires raging, sea levels rising, and a potentially very bleak future for young people on the horizon.
The internationally agreed target of capping global warming at 1.5% above preindustrial levels, deemed essential by climate scientists to prevent the worst effects of climate change, is looking dangerously out of reach, with the effects of climate change being no longer predictions of the future, but current events. In early 2025, the LA wildfires burned over 40,000 acres of land, resulting in the loss of the homes of tens of thousands of people. Around 40% of glaciers are already beyond saving and doomed to melt, which will have a massive impact on the billions of people reliant on glaciers to regulate the water used to grow food.
We have also been feeling the effects of climate change in the UK. The summer of 2022 saw temperatures hitting 40 degrees in the UK for the first time in history, leading to rail lines buckling, 20% of hospital operations being cancelled during the peak of the heatwave, and over 3000 people dying prematurely due to the heat. Following this, at the start of July 2023, the planet endured the two hottest days ever recorded.
No Climate Justice Under Capitalism
There is no solution to the climate crisis under capitalism. Capitalism, driven by competition and big business profits before all else, cannot deliver the coordinated, long-term planning required to address the climate crisis. In fact, 71% of all global greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 can be traced to just 100 fossil fuel producers.
This Labour government defends the interests of capitalism, and has demonstrated its lack of willingness to fight the climate crisis head-on. Even before the election, Keir Starmer abandoned Labour’s policy of investing £28 billion into green investment funds, despite the ongoing climate crisis.
The same unwillingness to act can be seen in country after country, where capitalist governments prioritise the profits of ‘their’ capitalist class over the needs of ordinary people and the environment.
While many may hope that international climate agreements may offer a step in the right direction, this has been demonstrated to not be the case. Even if every commitment made at the 2016 Paris Agreement was met, global warming would still go beyond the 2-degree limit that the summit declared as an essential cap. Furthermore, not a single industrialised country is even on track to meet the commitment that it made in 2016.
Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is a clear indication that capitalist politicians are willing to abandon climate targets in favour of national interests and short-term profit motives. The US is a massive contributor to climate change, ranking second in the world after China, with the US still having a higher rate of emissions of planet-warming gases per capita.
Rather than attempting to tackle this problem, Trump is ignoring the scientific evidence and encouraging further acceleration of fossil fuel and oil extractions as part of his ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ pledge! The Trump administration has also launched attacks on universities, pulling funding from diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) programmes, many of which are based around climate change, which will limit further research into environmental studies.
At a time when global cooperation to end the climate crisis is needed more than ever, Trump’s divisive politics and use of trade tariffs globally make him a clear example of the unplanned chaos that capitalism means for the world today.
Clearly we can’t trust our planet in the hands of the capitalists and their politicians. By fighting to take big businesses into public ownership, including nationalising polluting oil and gas companies under democratic workers’ control and management, the working class could run these industries for social need not profit, and focus on taking co-ordinated steps to make the switch towards environmentally friendly energy sources.
If workers had a democratic say in how society is run, a planned ‘green transition’ away from fossil fuels and towards environmentally friendly alternatives could be achieved without mass job losses for workers in those industries.
Workers’ control
The ‘Lucas Plan’ in the 1970s gives a glimpse of how workers currently employed in environmentally harmful industries could redirect their skills and expertise to lead the charge for a green transition.
Over fifty years ago, workers at Lucas Aerospace – a company making electronic systems for missiles – were threatened with mass redundancies due to deindustrialisation. Instead of accepting these losses, the workers, organised in trade unions, proposed a shift in production from military manufacturing to socially useful goods.
Over 150 ideas with detailed technical designs were included in the plan, offering a glimpse into the opportunities that can arise when workers are given the chance to repurpose their technical expertise into socially useful goods.
Tragically, due to resistance from the management and the lack of workers’ control in the company, the plan was ultimately blocked. Nonetheless, the Lucas Plan is perhaps relevant now more than ever before. It highlights why we need democratic, fighting trade unions to play a central role in the fight against climate change and towards a sustainable future.
The impact of war
This era of capitalist crisis means horror on end – not just seen in the deepening climate crisis, but also in increasing wars, including the genocidal horrors suffered by the Palestinians in Gaza.
War not only displaces millions of people and causes devastating loss of life. It also wreaks havoc on the climate. Russia’s war in Ukraine, for example, has severely damaged biodiversity and inflicted lasting harm on Ukraine’s natural environment.
Examples of capitalist war’s devastating effects on the climate can also be seen throughout history. During the Vietnam War, over 5 million acres of forest and 500,000 acres of farmland were destroyed, with over 400,000 tons of the toxic chemical Napalm being sprayed over the Vietnamese countryside by the US. In Iraq, marshlands were reduced by 90% after President Saddam Hussein ordered major rivers be stopped in order to crush an uprising. Furthermore, Afghanistan has lost nearly 95% of its forest cover in recent decades.
Even during ‘peacetime’, militaries use vast amounts of dirty energy. For example, the US Department of Defense’s 566,000 buildings make up 40% of its fossil fuel consumption. These structures include training centres, dormitories, factories, and other facilities across the department’s nearly 800 bases worldwide. As nations continue to boost military spending in an increasingly multipolar and unstable world, the climate continues to bear the consequences.
Youth vs climate chaos
The message is clear: young people aren’t willing to pay the price for capitalism’s exploitation of the climate, and failure to give us a future. The climate crisis is pushing more and more students and young people into action. As well as countless grassroots youth-led campaigns taking shape in various communities, the ‘School Strike for Climate’ movement saw millions of students across the globe mobilise in protest against climate change, demonstrating that a new generation of young people have been pushed into action. After all, young people are now entering into a world of climate breakdown, increased militarisation, and vast economic inequality. Now, more than ever, young people are seeking an alternative system which can provide a genuine way forwards.
While many young people may have looked to the Green Party, hoping that they may provide an alternative, their actions have fallen short. For example, the party voted through £51 million in cuts to Bristol City Council, a move defended by Green council leader Tony Dyer as a necessity, as he explained in a BBC interview that they were simply having to “work within the constraints that are placed upon us.” This just exposes the Greens’ lack of a clear, transformative vision for a socialist society, which is vital for any party looking to stand up to the capitalist system and its demands that the working class pay for the bosses’ climate catastrophe.
As Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn’s 2019 manifesto included a £250 billion green transformation fund, a commitment to a publicly owned national grid, and for the “supply arms of the big six energy companies to be brought into public ownership”. His manifesto, which also included other bold policies such as the scrapping of tuition fees, electrified millions of young people.
Now Corbyn has joined Zarah Sultana in pledging to build a new party to take on Starmer’s Labour. Socialist Students welcomes this as a potential major step forward in fighting climate change and capitalism. As a bare minimum, Corbyn’s green policies from 2019 would be a starting point, from which a mass movement for socialist change, not climate change, could be built.
Under a socialist system, the banks and major industries – including the major energy companies – would be placed in the hands of workers, not the capitalist bosses. By cooperating and discussing together, it would be possible to democratically draw up a plan of production based on human need, including the need for a healthy environment. The world’s massive wealth, resources and technology could be steered towards ensuring we live sustainably. Millions of high-quality, eco-friendly jobs would be created as societies shift rapidly towards green energy. Decisions about where to locate renewable energy production could be made democratically, with proper community consultation.
Socialist Students campaigns at schools, colleges, and universities across the country – to allow young people to make their voices heard in the fight for a viable socialist future, in which the needs of people and the planet which we live on are no longer secondary to profit. If you agree, then join us this term.
Donald Trump has been ever-present in US and world politics for over a decade. Despite losing an election in 2020 he just refused to go away. Why is this? What does Trump represent within American society? And the inevitable question for socialists all around the world – how can Trump be defeated?
The capitalist system is deep in crisis – economic, social, political and environmental. Capitalist leaders across the world, from Trump to Starmer, look to make workers and young people pay for this, and they are hated for it. In the US, Biden’s administration represented price rises and falling wages. Voters rejected that – either by not voting or voting Trump to beat Biden.
Trump has not gone away because he is currently able to capitalise on the problems within American society. What are those problems? America is a society divided by class. Even though he presents as anti-establishment, Trump is a representative of the capitalist class of exploiters, a billionaire son of a millionaire property tycoon. On the other side sits the working class, whose interests are the opposite of the private profit-prioritising capitalist class – but who have no party of their own who can answer Trump’s division and build a united fightback against all his attacks.
Living standards are falling, and people do have a right to be angry because of this. For example, it was estimated by CBS News in August 2024 that 27.1 million have no healthcare coverage. 27.1 million people. This is larger than the population of 22 of the 27 EU member states and not far off 40% of the entire population of the UK.
The American working class has never had a mass party to lead it with a programme representing its needs, such as free healthcare and education. Amid this vacuum today, Trump, despite representing American capitalism, finds an echo among workers looking for an alternative to the current status quo. He does so partly by expressing rage against the establishment but links that with populist, reactionary messaging to divert the rightful anger of millions of Americans about their dire standards of living.
Trump promised American workers that he would improve their living standards, but his measures will not end the crisis of the capitalist system. In fact, he will accelerate the crises. For example, his tariffs have the aim of increasing America’s share of the world’s wealth, but they will increase the costs of goods for US workers. Tariffs and other policies will also ratchet up tensions and crisis across the world.
Trump blames immigrants, LGBT+ people and any other marginalised groups he can think of for the problems of American capitalist society. His mantra is to divide and rule to sow division within the working class so that he and his billionaire friends can continue to exploit without a fightback.
Trump does not answer the anger and frustrations millions of working-class Americans have. His programme of privatisation and tax cuts for the mega-rich only makes things worse.
Whereas former Democratic Presidents such as Obama and Biden would performatively act as ‘progressives’ while bombing innocent people in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., or enabling the genocide in Gaza, Trump and his acolytes will happily boast about turning Gaza into a ‘riviera’.
Role of the Democrats
The Democrats are no alternative within American society. They also aided the genocide in Gaza against the Palestinian people. They had a majority in both branches of Congress (the Senate and House of Representatives) from 2020-2022, and have held similar majorities many times previously. What have they delivered for the American working class? No universal, nationalised healthcare system. No codified abortion rights. No enshrined rights for all LGBT+ people. They bailed out the corrupt banks after they crashed the world economy in 2008 while workers faced job losses and poverty pay. Remember Kamala Harris had more billionaires supporting her (83) than Donald Trump (52) according to Forbes and the Independent. The Democrats are deeply wedded to the exploitation of the working class and poor both at home in the US and abroad.
Should socialists support the Democratic party as a lesser evil? It is understandable when faced with the stark reality of a Trump presidency many will say “vote the lesser evil.” But this is not a solution for the American working class. What is needed is the building of a party of the working class, which gives people something to actively want to support.
Self-described socialists have run within the Democratic party in the past, most famously Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and now Zohran Mamdani. Sanders in 2016 and 2020 ran for the presidential nomination and saw mass enthusiasm for his programme of free healthcare and education and a $15-an-hour minimum wage. What was the response of the Democratic party? To block him from being the presidential challenger who could have beaten Trump, and put up an establishment representative in Hilary Clinton instead.
Mamdani
It is important that the lessons are learned by the supporters of Zohran Mamdani. Zohran won the Democratic nomination for the Mayor of New York City in June 2025 with an incredible 570,000 votes.
Mamdani’s programme promises reforms that are hugely popular: a rent freeze, building public housing, a $30-an-hour minimum wage by 2030, free buses, free childcare, city-owned grocery stores with price caps, and increasing taxes on the rich. He has also been a prominent opponent of the Israeli state’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Significantly he won the votes in some districts that voted for Trump in last year’s presidential election, indicating the potential for socialist candidates to cut across support for Trump in the working class.
Since then, many high-profile Democratic party stalwarts have refused to endorse him. His main competitor in the primary Andrew Cuomo – a former Democratic Governor of the state of New York mired in scandal but still backed by a $25 million ‘super PAC’ and endorsed by Bill Clinton and hedge fund billionaires – has announced he will run as an independent candidate.
Yet again we see the capitalist establishment in the Democratic party attempting to sabotage anyone who dares to mention the word socialism. The capitalist establishment, including Trump, will do all in its power to prevent a radical reformer winning control of the biggest city in the US, the seat of all the main capitalist institutions – Wall Street and the financial centre. While many sections of big business have accommodated to Trump and his unorthodox approach, despite backing Harris in the election, the situation is very different when the anti-establishment challenge comes from the left.
This must be a fight for the building of an political voice of the working class, independent of big business interests. The pro-capitalist Democratic leadership will aim to either neutralise him by watering down his programme or will outright sabotage him.
Mamdani must mobilise the local workers’ movement in New York in support of this programme. This is crucial as the trade unions are the principal organisations of the working class. If elected, they have the ability to help carry out Mamdani’s programme by, for example, withdrawing their labour to emphasise their support for Mamdani.
An example for Mamdani is in Liverpool, when socialists led the city council in 1983-85 and fought Thatcher for millions of pounds to fund what the Liverpool working class needed – including 5,000 council homes, nurseries, sports facilities, and apprenticeships. The struggle included strikes as well as trade union and community delegates being central to determining council policy.
Workers fighting back
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 14.3 million workers in trade unions in the US. Imagine the power of a party which brought together the millions of organised workers across the unions, giving them a unified political voice.
Even before Trump’s re-election there has been positive developments within the organised workers’ movement. In workplaces there have been strike action and trade union campaigns across the country in recent years. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in its most recent reports from the year 2023, 477,900 US workers took strike action, the largest number since 2018. This included a strike movement in Starbucks, which is still ongoing with Starbucks refusing to recognise the workers’ right to unionise; the SAG-AFTRA strike of film and TV workers in July-November 2023; and the September-October 2023 strike movement of the United Auto Workers against the three largest automaker companies: Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.
It is significant that a number of workers in the US, before Trump’s re-election, took strike action for the first time. The consequence of this will be the development of new working-class organisers in union branches, workplaces and communities, and a greater confidence in the ability of the working class to fight independently in its own interests. A stronger basis exists therefore with these new working-class, battle-hardened activists to combat the attacks of the Trump government. The potential for victories can be seen with a January-February 2025 strike of the Oregon Nurses Association, with the workers there winning a 22% pay increase alongside better terms and conditions for employment.
In addition, on the streets we have seen three particularly noteworthy events in the only seven months since Trump’s inauguration. On 5 April 2025 there was a synchronised ‘day of action’ in all 50 states, comprising 1,300 demonstrations and events protesting the anti-working-class policies of the Trump administration. The ‘No Kings’ demonstrations (so titled because of Trump’s increasing use of executive power to push through legislation) on 14 June included 2,100 events and demonstrations, with an estimated five million taking part. There was also the uprising in California against ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) on 6 June amidst raids against people of both legal and illegal migrant status in Los Angeles. All of this without an existing political party that can pull together all of the struggles of the working class! Imagine the potential if such a force, armed with a socialist programme, was able to lead the way.
The importance of the trade unions, and the millions they represent, is that they are the main organisations of the working class. A collective voice for the trade unions in a new party would put the working class in the driving seat.
The job of socialists in America is to fight for a mass party of the working class, which would be capable of providing the leadership to the millions of angry working class people in the US. We as socialists internationally can aid this fight by building mass parties of the working class in each of our respective countries, in doing so providing a potential model for US workers to follow.
In addition we can stand up against Trump by protesting him and the capitalist system in decline that he represents. Socialist Students is leading such a campaign across the country with our walkout and protest campaign against Trump’s September UK visit (see next page). The building of mass workers’ parties, the arming of the trade unions with a fighting strategy, and building an international socialist movement is what is necessary to defeat the barbarism of Trump and the chaos of capitalism that he represents.
Lottie Young Cambridge Socialist Students Article taken from Autumn 2025 edition of the Socialist Student magazine
Sexism is an enduring problem in universities that has significant impacts on students. Sexual harassment, objectifying and misogynistic comments from classmates, drink spiking, and sexual assault are common. These attitudes are a product of and perpetuated by capitalism, which is a system based on exploitation and inequality. Today, women’s lives are vastly different from even a few decades ago. Struggles for personal autonomy, financial independence, and legal rights –such as equal pay and access to education – have made gains. At the same time, these gains are not conclusive, and the horrors of sexism can still be seen, such as the murder of Sarah Everard by an off-duty police officer.
A survey of 4,491 students by Revolt Sexual Assault found that 70% of female students had experienced sexual violence, with 25% of these students reporting that they skipped lectures, tutorials, or changed certain modules to avoid their attackers, and a shocking 16% ended their studies as a result of the violence and harassment they experienced.
It is clear that whilst attitudes towards women in universities have experienced some progress – with women now able to earn degrees, enter into careers in academia, and hold positions of leadership in universities – we are still incredibly far from the elimination of sexism and sexual violence within universities and wider society.
These shocking statistics come amidst the years of cuts to services and infrastructure for students, including campus lighting, night transport, counselling services, student bursaries, and the funding of programmes to tackle on-campus sexism. The fact that only 6% of respondents felt that they could report their assault to their university shows that current university services are not helping students to feel comfortable, safe, and supported on campus.
Fight for funding and control of our campuses
In 2023, the average salary for the vice chancellor across the UK’s twenty-four Russell Group universities exceeded £400,000 (with the vice chancellor of Oxford University earning a staggering £1,048,000), with more than two-thirds of them receiving pay rises. While students are left to deal with rising tuition fees, the cost-of-living crisis, and cuts to education – including the subsequent lack of prevention of sexual violence – the decision-makers are raking in the cash.
If we can’t trust the cutting university bosses to keep us safe, then students have to fight to guarantee this right ourselves. That should start with student unions linking up with trade unions to campaign against sexual harassment in schools, colleges and universities. Part of that should be campaigning for democratically elected committees of students and staff to be in charge of investigating reports of sexism and sexual violence on campus, ensuring that the processes are effectively implemented and accessible to those who need them.
The money is clearly there in society to create fundamental change for all students, but it is going into the pockets of a select few instead. Socialist Students has initiated the Funding not Fees campaign to build a movement for fully funded, free education – paid for by taking the wealth out the hands of the super-rich.
Imagine what we could do if we had all the resources we need for education. We could scrap tuition fees and introduce maintenance grants that actually cover the cost of living. There could be massive investment in things like campus lighting and secure student housing. We could make sure that every university campus had free-to-use, properly staffed creche facilities, so that parents with young children could attend classes.
How to take on ‘lad culture’
Many measures within universities to tackle sexism are aimed at quelling ‘lad culture’. This sees sexism and sexual violence as deriving from the behaviour of individual or groups of men, or a culture among young men which encourages sexism.
Misogynistc ideas exist across society, and can even become more prominent among sections. The Revolt Sexual Assault survey found 42% of respondents agreed that actions constituting sexual assault and harassment had become “normalised” at university. There are also stories of disgusting sexist messages shared on many student group chats. For example, a group chat of Durham University students included discussions of sleeping with ‘a different bird every night for a bed’ and ‘posh lads’ competing to sleep with the ‘poorest girl’.
Students absolutely have the right to ‘call out’ derogatory comments made by individual men, but what could most effectively stamp out sexism and misogyny on a campus- and society-wide basis is a mass movement against sexism and for the things we all need, uniting people of all genders in a common struggle. Today working-class and young people’s struggles against all forms of oppression have been pushed back. Previous generations were able to use their collective weight and joint interest in challenging reactionary ideas to make gains against sexism.
It is no coincidence that the propaganda of Andrew Tate and Co. has become more popular during the huge crisis of capitalism which exists today and the misery which comes with it. But limiting campaigning against sexism to opposing male ‘culture’ or individual sexist men, without acknowledging that the capitalism system embraces and promotes gender inequality and sexism, also doesn’t offer women a way forward. It can also subsequently repel men from participating in the fight against sexism (and thus capitalism) instead of uniting the working class in a mass struggle against oppression, both on campus and beyond.
A socialist alternative to sexism and capitalism
There are many examples of how capitalism benefits from promoting gender inequality and sexism. The notion that women should care for both the family and the home is promoted because it means that women will continue to do this unpaid work, subsequently saving the capitalist class billions, which would otherwise need to be spent on public services – like expanded childcare and social care – or on increased wages so that those services could be bought privately in the market. The objectification of women and unattainable beauty standards are promoted by the fashion industry to sell their products, continuously promising women that they can help them reach this ‘ideal’ form of attractiveness. And finally, sexism, which more often than not causes strain between men and women in society, is useful to the ruling class as it encourages the division of the working class.
To truly eliminate the sexist ideas and ‘culture’, the dismantling of capitalism and the socialist transformation of society is necessary, for it is capitalism that drives sexism and misogyny. A socialist society would be one in which public and state organisations and institutions (including universities) were under the democratic control of workers and service users; in which society was democratically planned for need not profit; and in which the idea of gender norms and inequality were no longer promoted.
Whilst this would not instantaneously eradicate gender norms that have been embedded in class society, the socialist transformation would dismantle the structures and means through which those ideas have been sustained, thus forming a society in which gender norms, sexist ideas, and gender-based power imbalances would no longer be relevant. Therefore, the ‘lad’ culture and the deeply ingrained sexist values within our society which significantly drive sexism on-campus would be eliminated.
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.
More than half a million people signed up to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s call for a new party within a few days of its announcement, with hundreds of thousands more since. Polls show that support for the potential new party is highest among young people, and would win among 18 to 24-year-olds – and that’s before the party has even been formed!
And no wonder there has been this enthusiasm for a political alternative, when you look at the world on offer to young people today.
In Gaza, Palestinians are suffering genocidal horror. The number of people fleeing war and persecution globally has never been higher. Capitalist politicians and the billionaires they defend just sit on their hands, while the climate crisis threatens humanity.
As students, we face the soaring cost of living, dismal housing, and more and more student debt. The prospect of one day having a good job and a decent home that we can afford seems more distant than ever.
None of the establishment parties have any answers to this situation. They are all united in their defence of a capitalist system that puts big business profits before the needs of humanity and our planet.
After 14 years of brutal Tory austerity, Labour has only offered more of the same: cuts to benefits, attacks on trans people and other minority groups, raising tuition fees, and supporting the Israeli state’s slaughter. Starmer has clamped down on the right to protest, to try and prevent even more opposition to his rule, but so far he has only provoked more anger.
Reform UK have tried to cash in, cynically posing as an alternative. But all they do is pose as anti-establishment, while offering no alternative to austerity in local councils, and all the while stoking racism and division which weakens our ability to fight back.
OUR CHANCE FOR A POLITICAL VOICE
For the thousands of young people who have signed up to Corbyn and Sultana’s initiative – ‘Your Party’ – the prospect of a new party will therefore be a ray of hope in the fight for a better future: ‘Finally, our chance to have a political voice that fights for us, not the warmongers and the billionaires’!
When Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party, there was huge enthusiasm among young people for his anti-austerity, anti-war policies. In the 2017 and 2019 general elections, Corbyn offered the chance for free education: an end to tuition fees, and maintenance grants instead of loans.
On election day, students literally queued around the block to vote for Corbyn. The capitalist media called it a ‘youthquake’ – not as praise, but out of fear of the mass movement that Corbyn’s programme generated.
Today, there is again the possibility of a major party that fights for free education, along with other policies that could make a real difference to our lives – like rent controls and mass council housebuilding, a minimum wage of at least £15-an-hour for all, and a massive ‘green transition’ away from fossil fuels. We could have a party that fights to defend the right to protest, and backs up movements fighting to end the Israeli state’s terror and occupation of the Palestinian territories.
To win all these things and more, the party will have to draw its strength from the mass mood to fight back that exists under this Labour government. By giving a lead to and reinforcing the collective action of working-class and young people, the party would be able to spearhead a movement capable of wrenching wealth, resources and control of society out of the hands of the super-rich and big business.
So if you want to discuss, campaign and fight now for a socialist alternative to the chaos facing our futures, then you should get involved in your local Socialist Students society this year.
But imagine how much further that fight would be strengthened if we had a new mass party giving a voice to student organisations, trade unions, anti-cuts campaigns, climate and anti-war movements, and more. A political voice linking our struggles as students to everyone else in society who is fighting back under this rotten capitalist system.
That’s why Socialist Students will be joining Corbyn and Sultana’s new party this year. And if you want to fight for this to be a democratic party, rooted in the struggles of working-class and young people, which fights for socialist policies – and join up with students in socialist societies on 50+ campuses doing the same! – then Socialist Students is the organisation for you.
Buckingham Palace has booked in Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK for 17-19 September.
Already hundreds of students have signed up to walk out of their schools, colleges and universities on Wednesday 17 September – the day that Trump arrives in the UK – as part of the Youth Walkout Against Trump campaign.
The youth walkouts, initiated by Socialist Students, will be a protest against the chaos that Trump’s presidency represents for young people’s futures globally.
Students will be walking out to instead demand a future to look forward to – for free education, a decent job, and the guarantee of a high-quality and affordable home for all; for an end to climate crisis; and for a world free from war, oppression and exploitation.
With Trump’s visit taking place while Parliament is in recess, Keir Starmer and his Labour government will be hoping to escape the firing line of mass protests like those which Trump provoked during his first state visit to the UK in 2018.
But the Youth Walkout Against Trump campaign will not let Labour off the hook. Adam Gillman, Socialist Students national organiser,said: “By building the youth walkouts, we can send a powerful message to young people and workers in America that we stand with them against Trump – not with Starmer, who issued the invite for this state visit.”
TJ, a 19-year-old student in Leeds, said: “Labour has made cut after cut to young people’s futures while bosses make record profits. now they roll out the red carpet for oppressive leaders abroad. I am building for these walkouts to give young people a way to show Starmer’s Labour that this is not what the public voted for.”
Lauren from Wrexham said: “Trump’s visit to the UK is an opportunity to fight back; not just against him but the capitalist system he upholds, which puts the interests of big business above the lives of working-class people. These walkouts are a chance to stand up to Trump, as well as our government who welcome him with open arms, and all other leaders who uphold this corrupt system! That’s why I’m building the youth walkouts against Trump.”
Penelope, a college student from Preston, highlighted the common attacks facing students either side of the Atlantic: “Trump has cut funding to US universities, and has attacked students and staff standing up on issues like Palestine. Meanwhile Starmer’s government here raises universities tuition fees and continues the rampant underfunding of all levels of education. By walking out when Trump visits we are showing that young people everywhere have to fight for a decent education, in a capitalist world where none of our hard-won rights can be taken for granted”.
While the university term has come to a close, and schools and sixth forms break up next week, Socialist Students will be continuing to build the walkout campaign over the summer – including calling public youth meetings in towns and cities throughout the UK to discuss how young people can build the walkouts and get organised to win a decent future under this Labour government.
Socialist Students 