Tag: politics

Students: get organised and fight back!

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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.

Reject a lifetime of debt, fight for free education

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James Taylor, Birmingham Socialist Students

On top of a cost-of-living crisis now. Students’ futures are of a lifetime of debt. As graduates, money will be taken from our wages monthly, and still the mountain of debt is likely to keep growing.

And to make things worse, in the Autumn Budget, the Labour government froze the threshold at which graduates have to start repaying their student loans. Graduates who make over £28,470, not much over minimum wage, will lose 9% of their income above that to repay student loans.

This is a clear breach of Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledges not to raise taxes on ‘working people’. In fact, this policy is a regressive tax in disguise. Students with wealthier parents can pay tuition fees up front and thereby avoid ballooning interest rates, while working-class students are left with debt for life.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves claims this system is “fair and reasonable”. Is it fair that due to the threshold freezes by 2030, graduates working full time on the minimum wage will have to pay?

This is another in a number of attacks on students by this Labour government. In November 2024 they raised tuition fees from £9,250 to £9,535. Maintenance loans have failed to keep up with inflation, with food prices and especially rent going up. There are profits to be made in charging extortionate rent for sub-par student accommodation.

Universities are increasingly unable to cover their costs, with whole departments being closed around the country. Instead of funding education properly, the government is dipping deeper into the pockets of graduates to put a plaster on the situation.

Successive governments – Labour and Tory – are serving the interests of the capitalist class at the expense of workers and young people. Unsurprisingly, this has made the government deeply unpopular among students, many of whom are looking for a political alternative. Socialist Students fights to build campaigns against university cuts and fee hikes. We will be planning the fightback at our national conference in Manchester on 14 February. If you want to fight for free and fully funded education and to scrap student debt you should attend.

Students get organised! Come to Socialist Students conference

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James Gretton, Southampton Socialist Students

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.

Join us at Socialist Students conference!

Socialist Students conference 2026

Saturday 14 February 2026
University of Manchester

Come to Socialist Students conference

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Youth get organised – Fight for socialist change

University of Manchester, 14 February 2026

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?

If you are a student or student/youth organisation that wants to be part of this discussion, get in touch and register your interest in attending here: socialiststudents.org.uk/socialist-students-conference-2026/

Socialist Students speech at Socialism 2025

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Sofia Pandolfi, college student and Socialist Students member, gave an inspiring speech at Socialism 2025. Read what she had to say here!

Young people today have grown up in a world of crisis. We’ve seen governments increase university tuition fees, cut our youth services, attempt to strip away disability benefits for young people, and propose a future which gives us no hope.

Internationally, we’ve watched our government support the brutal genocide in Palestine, claiming it has no money to invest in our education and services.

Living under a system devoid of opportunities, and dependent on international exploitation, has fuelled anger and frustration.

But if we young people are to have a real future to look forward to, we need to transform our anger into action – by getting organised for a socialist alternative to capitalism, and the war, exploitation and oppression that this system produces.

That is what Socialist Students did when Donald Trump, an embodiment of capitalism in crisis, came to visit the UK on the invitation of Keir Starmer in September.

Socialists Students organised a campaign of youth walkouts against Trump to get young people organised against Trump and Starmer’s politics of war and division. To build for the walkouts in London, I helped to give out hundreds of leaflets, put up posters, and met with students to share ideas on how to protest against Trump’s visit.

Hundreds of students across the country, standing up to Trump and the brutal system he represents, walked out of their schools, colleges, and universities on the 17 September – the day Trump was in Windsor Castle feasting on a state banquet with Starmer, the King, and a guest list of billionaire tech CEOs.

It wasn’t easy. At one school in South London, we watched the headteacher rip leaflets out of students’ hands. At another school in East London, the management called the police to intimidate students into not protesting.

The youth walkouts against Trump were a chance to show that young people can fight back when we get organised. Socialist Students is now following up the walkouts with a campaign to get students in schools, sixth forms and colleges building our own students’ unions, as a way for young people to have an organised voice. Not just for one day, but always.

By getting organised as students, we can more effectively link up with the workers who keep our education and society running and build a united movement for the socialist change that we all need.

For that, young people also need a political voice through which we can fight alongside the organised working class. Your Party is an opportunity to do that.

Your Party could give a voice to young people’s anger by demanding fully funded free education, mass building of council houses and rent controls, as part of a socialist programme to transform the lives of working-class and young people.

Why not take that first step by having Zarah Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn, and other Your Party MPs in the Independent Alliance proposing an amendment to the upcoming budget – instead of Labour’s plans for more tuition fee rises, calling for the total abolition of fees, as well as the cancellation of student debt, and the immediate reintroduction of maintenance grants for all students?

Socialist Students members have joined Your Party and are fighting for socialism and working-class struggle to be at the heart of it.

In universities across the country, we’ve organised dozens of meetings discussing how Your Party can be a democratic voice for students. As a next step to building the party we need on campus, we will be inviting Zarah Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn and the other Independent Alliance MPs to be part of a Your Party speaking tour of universities and colleges.

If you want to help build a political voice which can help unite students and young people with the powerful struggles of the working class, then join Socialist Students at your school, college or university to help build the fightback.

Is it too late for socialist change to end climate change?

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Hannah Ponting, Liverpool Socialist Students
Originally published in the Autumn 2025 edition of Socialist Student

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.

U.S. working class needs its own political voice

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Dean Young, Liverpool Socialist Students
Originally published in the Autumn 2025 edition of Socialist Student

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.

So, let’s get on with it!

Greens’ Polanski refuses Socialist Students demand to support no-cuts stand

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Zack Polanski Photo: Rob Browne/CC

Archie Betts, Liverpool Socialist Students

Zack Polanski addressed a meeting at the student fringe of the World Transformed event at Manchester Students Union on 11 October.

Manchester Socialist Students member, Robbie Davidson was able to ask a question in the discussion:

“Hi, I’m Robbie from Socialist Students. We welcome many of the things you’ve said Zack. But the Green Party has over 800 councillors across the country. Unfortunately, where the Greens have control of the councils, like in Bristol, they’ve carried out £50 million worth of cuts whilst simultaneously adding £60 million to the council reserves.

“The Green Party has the opportunity to implement a no-cuts budget in Bristol, by using those reserves, alongside the council’s borrowing powers, to fight austerity, not in words, but in action. Building council houses, funding local services, then fighting central government to restore the money. This approach of setting legally balanced no-cuts budgets is in line with the official policies of the local authority trade unions: GMB, Unite and Unison.

“Zack, will you instruct your over 800 councillors across the country, to fight for these no-cuts budgets?”

Polanski’s response: “If councils do no-cuts budgets, lets talk about Bristol in particular, what happens is, they effectively down tools, and then the government comes in and then do all the cuts anyway.

“And the councillors actually have nothing to do about it, and it can be even worse than actually making the cuts in the first place.”

Ultimately, Polanski’s response of hiding behind the threat of government commissioners, is an excuse not to fight back. Why should democratically elected councillors follow orders from unelected commissioners anyway?

Councils defying government austerity, funding services and building council homes, would be hugely popular. That would make it very difficult for the government to get away with taking over the council and ‘doing the cuts anyway’.

Bristol’s Green leader of the council told the BBC last year that “the reality is we have to work within the constraints that are placed upon us.” Why accept the ‘constraints’ of a capitalist system that forces the working class to pay? The Greens’ inability or refusal to fight for an alternative to capitalism will lead to them holding back working-class struggle.

Socialist Students members prepared for the meeting by drawing up a model question that we shared among those of us in attendance to increase the chances of it being asked. This ended up being the correct tactic as, of the six questions asked, only three were taken from the floor. The other three were prepared questions from the chair of the meeting.

Introduce real maintenance grants for all!

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Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser

The Labour government has announced that it will bring back maintenance grants for tens of thousands of students from ‘low-income backgrounds’ who opt for so-called ‘priority courses’.

Labour has not yet announced how much grant money students would receive, nor whether the grants would be paid on top of the existing maintenance loan allowance. But if the introduction of grants means that some of the poorest students have more money in their pockets, and leave university or college with less debt, then that is a victory.

Reintroducing maintenance grants, even in this very limited current form, was mentioned nowhere in Labour’s general election manifesto last year. This latest announcement has to be seen as a concession to the widespread anger that has developed against Labour since then, as millions of working-class and young people correctly see Starmer’s government as doing nothing but continuing the Tories’ war and austerity agenda.

Jeremy Corbyn

Labour’s hand has also been forced by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ announcement. As leader of the Labour Party, Corbyn inspired millions of young people with his offer of free education: scrapping tuition fees and introducing maintenance grants for all. A new party fighting for free education as part of a socialist programme to transform young people’s lives today would gain massive youth support – and Labour knows it.

Just the prospect of a new party fighting ‘for the many, not the few’ has Labour under pressure. At the same time, there is the prospect of a new round of national strike action in further and higher education, as the University and College Union (UCU) launches ballots this month. Now is the time for students to join the fight – to go on the offensive and fight for what we need by making the super-rich pay, not workers and young people!

We could start by demanding the government rolls out its maintenance grant plans immediately, rather than waiting until ‘the end of the Parliament’ as is currently planned. We should also demand that grants are made available for all courses, not just so-called ‘priority courses’ deemed most important by big business and their politicians.

Another important battleground will be the level of grants paid to students. The current level of maintenance support for students is woefully inadequate, whether that comes in the form of a loan, or as a mixture of a loan and a grant (as is the case for Welsh students studying in Wales, for example). A student receiving the maximum maintenance loan would still need to work 20 hours per week to meet a “basic standard of income”, according to the Higher Education Policy Institute.

Explaining the targeted rollout of maintenance grants at Labour conference, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson declared: “Students’ time at college or university should be spent learning or training, not working every hour”. Great! In which case, let’s make sure that maintenance grants are made available to all students.

Let’s also make sure these new grants cover the full cost of living and studying. That would also stop student loans saddling us with a lifetime of debt after we graduate.

The shareholders of the FTSE100 companies get payouts of around £85 billion every year. Instead of charging a levy on international fees to provide grants to a fraction of ‘home’ students, students should unite in a mass movement to demand free, fully funded education for all, paid for by taking the wealth from the super-rich.

Funding Not Fees

These are the kinds of ideas Socialist Students societies will be fighting for on campus with the ‘Funding Not Fees’ campaign this term. As part of this, we will be organising lobbies of MPs ahead of the 26 November Budget, for them to raise an amendment calling for free, fully funded education, including the introduction of living maintenance grants for all students.

We will also be raising the campaign in Your Party meetings between now and the founding conference, to make sure the call for free education forms a key part of a new mass socialist party giving a voice to young people and the working class.

Under pressure, Labour re-introduces some maintenance grants. Now let's fight for free education for all - make the super-rich pay!

Trump and Blair: Hands off Palestine!

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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.

Join Socialist Students