What you can do
1) Build for the N20 international youth walkout!
On 20 November 2026, Socialist Students will be joining over 20 other youth organisations across Europe, walking out of classes to say: ‘Fight for our futures, not their wars!’
Can you collect names of fellow students who can build for the biggest possible walkout where you are?
2) Build Socialist Students at your campus, college or school
Socialist Students is a democratic nationwide socialist organisation which has groups active in over 50 schools, colleges and universities. In September 2025 it organised youth walkouts against the state visit of Donald Trump. Groups discuss socialist ideas, and put them into practice, fighting for decent services, against oppression and for socialist change.
Sign up to help build a group where you are.
3) Buy your Socialism 2026 ticket
On 14-15 November, days ahead of the N20 international youth walkout, over 1,000 socialist activists will come together in London for a weekend of discussion and electric Saturday night rally.
What role for direct action in the struggle for socialism? Are the Greens the type of party we need to transform the world? Does AI mean the end of the working class? They are some of the 30 discussion workshops taking place.
Freshers and school students tickets from £5.
Reports from Freshers so far
Cambridge college students support fight for jobs and future
Philip Hodgson, Social Action Society, Hills Road College
The newly formed Social Action Society at Hills Road College in Cambridge, with the help of Socialist Students, held a campaign stall to build awareness for the 20 November youth strikes, and to circulate flyers on topics such as youth unemployment. Our group has affiliated to Socialist Students.
The response was positive, with students from Hills Road and neighbouring colleges expressing interest in collective action. People were keen to hear about the international strike, and what it has to do with them as UK college students.
The issue of youth unemployment particularly resonated with people. Increasingly, sixth-form students are in need of jobs to cope with upcoming university tuition fees and student housing. This was reflected in people’s choice of leaflets.
This stall, along with one inside the college premises, has meant our student society has quadrupled in membership. Young people are interested in learning about broader plans to protest our current system, and also uniting with likeminded individuals to enact change.
As a society with socialist ties and a unanimous anti-war stance, we hope to keep up momentum for these goals throughout the academic year. We look forward to hearing about other societies across the country doing the same.
Salford uni – money for education not war
Socialist Students kicked off freshers with a series of campaign stalls and events across the Salford campus. We met students and staff with diverse views – anarchists, communists, Labour and Reform supporters.
But almost everybody agreed that things are not working for working-class people, and that trade unions are essential to the fightback.
People agreed with ‘Funding, Not Fees’. The government is boosting military budgets. Meanwhile, unis face course cuts and closures.
Students thought that having multiple military stalls over the week was wrong. And that working-class people shouldn’t be forced to risk their lives in wars that serve the interests of the capitalist class.
21 people came to our first Socialist Students meeting centred around how we can fight the rise of the far right. But it developed into a much wider conversation on how working-class people are too often pushed into the military.
We are the first political society at Salford in 25 years. There is a huge appetite for political discussion and debate.
Five people attending our meeting were studying military apprenticeship courses. One said: “Why can’t we have discussions like this in the army?”
There’s a desire to fight back against the far right and super-rich, for nationalising energy and water under democratic workers’ control, and the socialist transformation of society.
Fin Cozens-Stott, Salford Socialist Students
Leicester socialist youth meeting: Fight for our future, not their wars
Alanah Carey-Peacher, Leicester Socialist Students
We hosted a public meeting on the struggles youth face today, and what the world that we are inheriting could look like.
We have known the climate crisis to be imminent for decades, yet the capitalist class and their politicians in charge have sat on their hands, and continued to let greed override need.
Now we see consistently worse weather, especially in the most poverty-stricken places on the planet. The extreme heat in the UK this summer is set to become the ‘new norm’.
One individual at the meeting stated that it feels like ‘what is the use in trying, when the places we all know and love could become unliveable in our lifetimes’. The bare necessities and amenities – which we all require to live a fulfilled life – are becoming harder to obtain.
There is a youth unemployment crisis. We are expected to have far more experience for a job than is possible!
We’ve paid through our teeth for our education. Yet it appears to count towards very little, despite costing us and our families a lot of debt.
Many young people have little choice but to opt for precarious job opportunities, such as zero-hour contracts. The capitalist class want us in this type of work, so it’s harder for us to unionise and fight for better conditions.
When we rely on the welfare state because of unemployment or poverty pay, the Labour government cuts benefits and threatens to take them away. It’s worsened by dodgy, invasive ‘review processes’ that claim we’re ‘fit’.
The cherry on top – increasing war and military spending – an immense toll on the working class. Increasing militarisation across Europe has sparked students to walk out on 20 November.
We’re demanding our governments fund education and our futures, instead of funding destruction. It’s more important than ever for the working class and young people to stand up.
Southampton college students struggling to cope
Nick Chaffey, Southampton Socialist students Organiser
While discussing with groups of students and staff at Southampton City College about the problems they face not in education, planning for a future came up – securing jobs, coping with the dangers of city life, and rising knife crime.
Staff explained how keen students are, signing up for apprenticeships, but finding it difficult to get an employer to take them on. Why doesn’t the council step in and offer training in construction, so we have a ‘direct works’ team to refurbish the 600 empty council homes that could dent the waiting list?
Southampton Labour council closed all its youth centres in 2012. Socialist’s fought those cuts, and we warned the council the impact it would have.
Young people should have access to safe activity and support. With a guaranteed job, training, or place in education, young people would have a genuine future.
Most weeks over the summer we’ve held a city centre campaign stall in the afternoon, before our we meet. We chat with young people who gather there after school and college finishes.
This week was better than ever. Young people from two other colleges, and one of the local unis, signed up for the 20 November walkout.
All had different reasons. Young people are angry.
We spoke to two young women who had grown up in care, recognising that their families could have stayed together if they had been given support at the time, when life was falling apart. Two young school students wanted to know how they could organise the walkout.
We explained how students had responded over climate change, with the huge school strikes. The key is get organised, and hold regular meetings.
Begin a discussion on the issues facing young people, and how the walkout can attract greater numbers, pressuring councils and governments into making concessions to the needs of young people.
Already, some who have signed up want to come to our meetings and hear more. Events are pushing young people to conclude they need to get active and fight for their future.
Greenwich students back working-class unity against racism and far right
Sofia Pandolfi, South London Socialist Students organiser
Socialist Students campaigned outside the welcome fair at the University of Greenwich Avery Hill campus, discussing with students the need to build a political voice on campus, and be part of the international youth strike on 20 November to fight for our future. 20 students signed up to know more about and join Socialist Students.
A few students who took leaflets said they did not consider themselves ‘political’. Despite claiming not to know about politics, they did understand from their experiences of worrying over getting a job, the extremely high cost of living, the travel expense of commuting to university, and the debt they’ll graduate with – the crises that young people face today.
We explained why the education and unemployment crisis we’re experiencing is a product of a system that prioritises profit, and invests in war over our future. Joining Socialist Students means fighting against cuts to our education and public services, funding our needs rather than increasing university tuition fees, and for a socialist transformation of society that can offer students and young people better opportunities and a real future.
Students expressed anger towards the far right, and worry over the threat of Reform. They were interested in the need to build unity amongst young and working-class people to fight back against the division and racism fuelled by the far right.
Brighton college students want to fight back
Callum Joyce, Brighton Socialist Students Organiser
We visited Brighton Met College to build support for the international youth walkouts on 20 November. One student remembered us from last year, when we were campaigning at the same college for walkouts against the state visit of US president Donald Trump to the UK.
We leafleted students during their lunch break. We had good discussions – they wanted to talk about the education funding crisis, what we thought about the Green Party, and the government’s plans to increase military spending.
We are revisiting the college every week. We arm students, who are looking to fight back, with a campaign and a strategy that they can use to do so.
We will invite university students that we meet at the freshers’ fairs to come join us campaigning at the college. For a lot of students, this is their first time discussing the idea of political activity. We hope it will be the basis for building a fighting student organisation here, and at other schools and colleges around Brighton.
As an immediate next step, we are organising a student protest on 25 September in solidarity with German school students, who are walking out against militarisation on that day – a launchpad for the Europe-wide action on 20 November.
Birmingham City Uni – angry about lack of jobs and education cuts
Nick Hart, Birmingham Socialist Students organiser
On the first day of welcome week, Birmingham City University Socialist Students got an excellent response. Both students and the public were angry at the lack of job opportunities for graduates, and universities prioritising the bottom line over quality of teaching.
One student walking past, stopped, took a leaflet, removed his earbuds, and told us he was just that minute listening to an audiobook of ‘What Is To Be Done’ by leader of the Russian Revolution Lenin.
Bristol youth looking for an alternative
Clint Hatcher, Bristol North Socialist Students Organiser
Our first campaign stall of this educational year was packed with students wanting to find out more on how they can organise in the college, and build towards the 20 November student walkouts. We’re hoping an informal meeting will take place after our next stall, with students wanting to find out more about setting up a Socialist Students society in their college.
The crisis of capitalism is apparent now more than ever for young people. Socialist’s can point to these issues, and put forward a programme to fight against rampant militarism and austerity.
As we enter the new educational year, all kinds of students are desperately seeking an alternative to the broken system they will inherit.
Socialist Students 