Tag: socialism

Socialist students hit the freshers’ fairs

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Cumbria uni – linking war, climate, and cost of living

Mollie Nixon, Cumbria Socialist Students

Every year, students arrive at Cumbria, expecting an escape to nature, only to find a university much like any other – prioritising profit over academic integrity. Socialist Party and Socialist Students members from Carlisle and the rest of the north west hosted street stalls outside freshers’ fair.

Climate change came up frequently. Many students pick Cumbria for its proximity to impressive natural landscapes. Students fear this environment being lost.

Many jumped at the chance to sign up to start an official Socialist Students society on campus, after finding out about the ‘Defence Universities Alliance’, which Cumbria uni is part of. The Ministry of Defence is using university funding to covertly funnel students into pro-military research and job roles.

This led many students that we spoke to expressing interest in the youth strikes on 20 November. Some even took posters to put up in communal kitchens.

In conversation, students made the connection between climate and other struggles. Cumbria uni is promoting the military, whilst simultaneously raking in student fees for being located in a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Students raised how much they are paying for their ‘Circuit Go’ laundry – some over £6 per wash at student accommodation. This gave us a great opportunity to raise Socialist Students’ previous dealings with Circuit Go, and the possibility for a local campaign.

40 people signed up to Socialist Students – a testament to students’ desire for action. We have since heard that the university bosses weren’t happy about us being there!

It’s no wonder. The uni is currently threatening staff with ‘fire and rehire’, if they don’t downgrade their pension scheme.

The last thing the uni wants is an organised Socialist Students presence on campus, who would fully back a staff strike!

Southampton uni – capitalist system links the crises

James Gretton, Southampton Socialist Students

We held a public tally, asking participants which issue on the agenda for the 20 November international youth strike resonated most for them. The climate crisis – an existential threat – was the most voted-on issue. Others recognised that all the issues are interconnected, and exacerbated by capitalism.

The runner-up issue was war and militarisation. Many students were aware about Germany’s increased military spending and possible reintroduction of conscription. The new UK Labour chancellor in Andy Burnham’s government, John Healey, has hinted at similar public spending cuts to pay for the military in next month’s Budget.

In the coming weeks, Southampton Socialist Students workshop meetings will cover the alleged ‘Burnham bounce’; an introduction to socialism; real alternatives to Labour and the capitalist system it presides over; and issues for the 20 November walkout.

We’re working with the Young Greens, and other local organisations, including Southampton Uni Green Society, to build for the biggest possible student strike. Socialist Students is prepared to engage with both newcomers and returning students, putting forward the need for socialist change.

Exeter uni students reject future of debt and climate destruction

Myles Hatcher, Devon Socialist Students

Students saw the International Youth Strike as compelling, and something they wanted to get involved with. Discussions around the housing crisis, spiralling debt, and endless wars were echoed by many students. A large number identified themselves as socialists or on the left.

On the second day, university security eventually asked us for our credentials, and moved us on from campus. We moved to the exit away from the university grounds, and continued our leafleting and discussions unabated.

We cleared through all of our material. Over 30 students signed up to the International Youth Strike.

Exeter uni currently lacks a Socialist Students society. But there is clearly a keen interest in getting involved in campaign activity and building something. We hope this will develop into a student society with regular meetings, political discussion, and action on campus.

Even the Labour society showed an interest, letting slip that their numbers are dwindling. The Labour Party is unable to offer young people anything to fight for.

Students are looking forward, and beginning to see what they are going to inherit. Not the prosperous future they were promised, but climate destruction, debt, and a continuing cost-of-living crisis. More young people see through capitalist lies.

York College students support £15-an-hour minimum wage

Dan Bassey, York Socialist Students

We had a large volume of students come by our campaign stall.

At first, students were hesitant. But after handing out a few leaflets, an increasing number came over to talk, eager to hear what we had to say.

Conversations covered the rise of Reform and the far right, workers’ rights, and the climate crisis. The campaign to increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour particularly resonated. This would double what college students aged 16-18 currently earn, as a minimum.

Young people are becoming increasingly disillusioned with mainstream politics, and are searching for something that can actually improve their lives. We help bring socialist ideas to them. Seven new people signed up to our walkout on 20 November.

Farnham – University for the Creative Arts – students take action

Huw James, Aldershot and North Hants Socialist Students

The university’s facilities are being run into the ground, despite increased tuition fees. Students rightly wonder where their fees are actually going. One student even organised a sit-in protest against proposed cuts to library services.

Students are worried about being saddled with debt when they graduate, then struggling to find employment in an increasingly harsh jobs market. They support the Socialist Students and Socialist Party policies of free education, nationalisation, and a £15-an-hour minimum wage.

Young people want better than what is being offered to them by capitalism. And frankly, who can blame them? 12 new students signed up to get involved with Socialist Students, and find out more.

Leicester WQE college – chats and debates

Ikra Rehman, Leicester Socialist Students

This is the first time in recent memory that we have organised campaign stalls at WQE sixth-form college in Leicester. Now, regularly, students come up to chat or debate, or we see them discussing the ‘no to war’ leaflets we’re handing out.

More young people are becoming interested in politics, consider themselves socialist, and have a desire to want to make difference and be part of something.

Notre Dame college, Leeds – crowds at socialist stand

Iain Dalton, Leeds Socialist Students

Calling out ‘No to Farage, no to Trump, join the Socialist opposition’, we had Notre Dame sixth-form college students taking leaflets and crowding round our stall near the college.

15 students left the details to join Socialist Students, including some from the nearby university walking past. We spoke to an organiser with the newly formed Green society at Leeds Arts Uni about how we could work together, to build for the 20 November international youth strike.

Nottingham Trent uni – money for war, nothing for youth

Seamus Smyth, East Midlands Socialist Students

There was anger about the constant wars around the world, particularly the British government’s role in supporting and financing them. This opened up wider discussions about why there always seems to be money for war, while young people face rising costs, insecure futures, and pressure around education and the cost of living.

There was willingness to discuss the wider political situation, and what a socialist alternative could look like. We distributed 250 leaflets in just two hours.

Students: 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.

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.

No to youth unemployment and low pay!

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Protest on November 20 to make the super-rich pay

Fight for our futures, not their wars!

Text from a new Socialist Students leaflet – available to order for your local campaigning by contacting socialistudents@gmail.com. Or to print locally access the PDF by clicking the image opposite.

We are the first generation in history to be worse off than the one before. One million young people in Britain are currently not in education, employment or training. Youth unemployment is at its highest level in over ten years.

In the sixth richest country in the world, how can it be that a million young people are thrown on the scrap heap, and millions more have no hope of a decent future?

The richest 50 families in Britain control more wealth than half of the population. But the bosses and super-rich fat cats would rather hoard that wealth than investing in high-quality jobs, education, public services and homes that could give young people a future.

That’s the logic of capitalism: maximising profits for a tiny few at the expense of the vast majority. To win a real future, young people have to get organised for a socialist alternative to capitalism – a system where society’s wealth, resources and technology are used to meet the needs of all people and our planet.

That means building a movement to take wealth and resources out the hands of the super-rich. In our schools, universities, workplaces and local areas, we could start by getting young people organised around the following demands:

  • No to youth unemployment! The government should massively increase investment in public services to create socially useful, fulfilling jobs for all.
  • No to low pay! For the immediate introduction of a £15-an-hour minimum wage, with no exemptions based on age. Labour must guarantee the scrapping of the unfair youth pay rates for under-21s.
  • No to bogus apprenticeships and training schemes! For well-paid apprenticeships and training schemes with the guarantee of a job at the end.
  • For free, fully funded education for all! Introduce living grants not loans, scrap tuition fees and cancel student debt. Stop the cuts in education.
  • Reopen libraries, youth clubs, leisure centres and other ‘third spaces’! Our councils should refuse to make cuts and should instead fight for funding from the government to ensure young people have places to go and things to do.

The crisis facing young people isn’t just in Britain. Capitalism is an international system, which means that young people everywhere are facing a future of more war, climate breakdown, unemployment and insecurity.

That’s why young people across Europe are coming together to build an international movement under the slogan, ‘Fight for our future – not their wars!’, with a day of international youth walkouts and protests on Friday 20 November.

In Britain, Socialist Students is trying to get young people organised for the biggest possible day of youth walkouts on November 20. We say fighting for our future means fighting for socialist change. If you want to join us in building the international youth walkouts in Britain, get in touch by click the button below:

Get involved in Socialist Students

Universities: free speech for some, clamp-down on protests for us

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Adam Powell Davies, Socialist Students national organiser

The Labour government has announced that it will implement new rules aimed at ‘protecting free speech’ on university campuses.

Under the new legislation – originally drawn up by the previous Tory government – the Office for Students will gain powers to investigate and potentially fine universities over complaints made by university staff, external speakers, and other ‘non-student members’. A complaints system that excludes the roughly 3 million university students living in the UK – not exactly free speech for us!

It shows how, despite paying lip-service to ‘free speech’, the Labour government only wants certain voices to be heard. Like all capitalist politicians, they pick and choose whose speech to promote or suppress according to what suits them and the system they defend.

Where is the Labour government’s outrage at the managements of twelve UK universities who, as reported this month, have paid private security firms to spy on pro-Palestinian student protesters and academics? Will this not have a chilling effect on ‘free speech’ on campus?

During the Gaza solidarity movement on campuses in 2023-24, uni bosses imposed sanctions on students and staff for protesting on campuses, often over institutions’ links to the arms industry. Labour politicians and vice chancellors claimed these protests made students scared to speak out, supposedly infringing their ‘free speech’. Why would the freedom of expression for one section of students have to come at the expense of another?

Labour politicians and vice chancellors are currently working together to destroy higher education. They have the most to gain from sowing division among students and staff, while outwardly purporting to do the very opposite under the banner of ‘protecting free speech’.

As a vital counterweight, students need our own democratic organisations which could provide a genuine forum for all students to discuss and debate different ideas, free from the meddling of management and capitalist politicians.

To free society from a tiny capitalist elite using its wealth and power to police the language and behaviour of the vast majority, we need to fight for a socialist system under the democratic control of the working class, based on meeting the needs of all, not the profits of a few. Part of that struggle includes the fight for a democratically run education system that is free and accessible to all.

Senedd: Greens drop free education pledges

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Ben Golightly, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate in Gwyr Abertawe (Swansea and Gower)

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidates are now the only ones in the Welsh Senedd election standing up for young people.

In 2021, Plaid Cymru promised an immediate £1,500 reduction in fees for Welsh-domiciled students at Welsh universities – with a “long-term goal of free university tuition.” But all that has since dropped from their 2026 Senedd manifesto, replaced by a promise of a review.

At the 2024 general election, the Green Party supported “the restoration of grants and the end of tuition fees”. However, in the 2026 Senedd elections, the Greens are instead now calling only for a pathway to “sustainably lower” tuition fees.

And in 2023, the Labour Party under Keir Starmer dropped Jeremy Corbyn’s free education pledges.

But the Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition manifesto instead says: “University tuition fees should be scrapped”, and grants paid at a level “to allow students to study without having to work”.

That’s what we’re standing for. Apparently now in Wales, we are the only candidates that are.

We have a record, such as leading successful student rent strikes in Swansea and Bangor during the Covid crisis, winning millions of pounds back for students.

Promoted by Dave Warren for the Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, both at 29 Tir Y Farchnad, Gowerton, Swansea SA4 3GS.

Join Socialist Students on the Together demo

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  • Sat 28 March, 12pm, Central London
  • March for a socialist alternative to racism, war and austerity
  • Meet from 11.30am on Park Lane/Upper Grosvenor Street Corner for speeches

The need to combat racism and the far-right is urgent. Nigel Farage’s racist right-populist Reform UK is currently leading in most polls. In the Summer, 100,000 people turned out to far-right activist Tommy Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ demonstration in London.

In response, Together – a new anti-far right alliance – has called a national demonstration in London for Saturday 28th March. Socialist Students is calling on students to join our contingent on the demonstration, to help us raise the need for a socialist alternative to capitalism as a central part in the fight against racism.

Capitalism means racism, war and austerity

Capitalism is an inherently unequal system that puts the profits of the billionaires above the needs of the billions of people around the world. To maintain this unequal set-up, the capitalist ruling class has always relied on racism to enable its brutal exploitation. Racism was used to justify the trafficking of ten million people by the slave trade, and later to justify colonial rule by British imperialism and other capitalist powers across the world.

Today, capitalist politicians continue to stoke racist ideas in an attempt to divide working-class people and weaken our collective ability to fight back. And they have plenty of reasons for wanting to sow racism and all forms of division, at a time when their system can only deliver more war, climate chaos, and falling living standards. The ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, and the chaos that has already wrought on the world economy, underlines how capitalism today can only bring instability for our futures.

Build a socialist alternative

The Labour government has no alternative. They are firmly on the side of the billionaire bosses and have overseen yet more austerity and cost-of-living crisis. By so blatantly attacking the living standards of working-class people, Labour creates the space for Reform UK to falsely pose as an ‘anti-establishment’ alternative ‘standing up for the little people’. If we want to stop Nigel Farage becoming the next prime minister, then we have to build a political alternative to the pro-capitalist, austerity policies of not just Reform but Labour and all the establishment parties.
We need to build a mass movement of workers and young people for the resources we need for a decent life. We have to demand: ‘Migrants aren’t to blame – take the wealth off the super-rich. For jobs, homes and services for all, not racist division!’. That kind of movement could bring working-class people from all backgrounds together in a united fightback that cuts across racism and identifies the real enemy: capitalism.

As the American civil rights activist Malcolm X said: “You can’t have capitalism without racism”. And if racism is embedded in the current system, then we need a new system: a socialist system which would eliminate the root cause of racism by taking economic and political control out of the hands of the small minority at the top who profit from inequality and division.

If you want the Together march to be a step towards building the mass anti-racist and socialist movement that is needed, join the Socialist Students contingent on March 28th and join your local Socialist Students society on campus.

A march can be an important start – but to end racism, we need to build a sustained movement that can challenge the capitalist system that profits from and reproduces reactionary ideas day-in, day-out.

Do you want to be part of the socialist, anti-racist challenge in this May’s elections?

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), which Socialist Students is part of, is appealing for the widest-possible anti-austerity stand in the upcoming May elections. That would be a powerful way of putting forward a socialist political alternative to Reform, Labour, and all the establishment parties.

For that message to have an impact on the national political debate, there needs to be the widest possible presence for a socialist alternative, including in the media coverage of the elections. To break through the media blackout, we must hit the Ofcom threshold for “fair media coverage”. This requires standing at least 840 candidates under a party registered with the Electoral Commission. Could you be one of them? Click here for more info

Socialist Students conference: Preparing for the new era full of opportunities

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“We truly are in unprecedented times” – these were the opening words of the 2026 Socialist Students conference in Manchester. On Saturday 14 February, over 80 student activists from across England and Wales battled train cancellations and a cost-of-studying crisis to come and debate what can be done to combat crisis-ridden capitalism on and off campus.

Kicking off the opening session on ‘The struggle for socialism in a world on fire’, Robbie Davidson from Manchester Socialist Students pointed out that young people can see more clearly than ever that this is a system with no answers. The purpose of the discussion wasn’t just to moan about the ills of capitalism today, but to have a stocktake of what is wrong with the world so we can understand how to change it.

That’s why he described the brutal repression being meted out by Trump and his anti-immigration ICE goons in Minneapolis, and the stoking of global tensions with military interventions in each of Venezuela, Nigeria and Iran in recent months.

This is not coming from a position of strength, but because Trump is unable to answer declining living standards and becoming ever more unpopular among workers and youth in America. There’s been walkouts of students and workers in Minneapolis against ICE killings, and occupations, as well as some of the biggest protests in US history around the No Kings movement.

And crucially, socialism is back on the agenda in the US. Newly elected Zohran Mamdani declares himself a socialist, a point of attraction rather than a turn-off for the million-plus who voted for him, and the thousands who came out to campaign for him.

Walking out against Trump

The effect of “bigot in chief” Trump on radicalising young people isn’t just a factor in the US, but also here in Britain. Last September when he came to Britain, Socialist Students organised walkouts of school and college students against the red carpet being rolled out for him by Starmer and the royal family. Despite attempts by headteachers to threaten disciplinary action, lock school gates and snatch leaflets from our hands, Socialist Students met college and school students taking political action for their first time and helped them get organised.

Not that there’s a lack of reasons to be angry much closer to home. Those turning 18 today will have lived their entire life in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis. Many of British capitalism’s problems stem from this era. In the two decades since, Tory, Lib Dem and Labour governments have attempted to break even by making the working class pay.

Low pay and high rents accelerated in the austerity era, schools became underfunded to the extent that teachers have been paying out of their own pocket for supplies for years. Dean Young from Liverpool described the dire situation facing young people leaving education. The unemployment rate among 16 to 24-year-olds is now 15.9%, with over half a million looking for work and unable to get it, while 800,000 claim Universal Credit. Linked to this is the disappearance of graduate and entry-level job roles.

And as James Taylor from Birmingham described, those able to find full-time employment on marginally more than the minimum wage will be faced with crippling loan repayments of 9% of their income over the £28,470 threshold for repayments, set to be frozen for the remainder of this government. Crippling interest of inflation +1% and additional repayments of 14% for those with postgraduate qualifications means that even those entering previously well-paid professions are finding their income squeezed by student debt. No wonder in recent years there have been well-supported strikes by resident doctors, teachers and even barristers!

These are just a few of many examples of trade unions coming back on to the scene. Conference delegates gave plenty of examples of how Socialist Students groups have worked with unions, including those in higher education struggling against job cuts, low pay and bad working conditions.

Tilde Resare from University of Sheffield described the ongoing strikes against redundances. Management have been hard to negotiate with, demanding strikers work in their own time to make up for work missed during strikes or face losing 100% of their pay (including for non-strike days). Striking University and College Union members effectively faced a 18-day-long lockout.

One staff member was penalised for not running a tutorial to prepare for an exam that had already happened. Sheffield Socialist Students have been able to help explain the reasons for the strike to students by leafleting alongside striking workers.

Ben from Birmingham called on delegates to look for where workers are fighting back in their local areas, such as the Birmingham bin workers fighting pay cuts and deskilling, or Oxfordshire firefighters campaigning to maintain a safe level of cover.

These examples of collective action by workers aren’t just deserving of support in their own right, but can give confidence and inspiration to students in how to organise to win their own struggles.

The University of Essex is threating closure of its Southend campus – hundreds of local students, especially from working-class backgrounds and facing barriers to study are being told they don’t have a place at university.

15,000 threatened job cuts

Nationally there have been 15,000 threatened job cuts in higher education since the start of 2025, with the government not ruling out closure of some unis. The occupation of campus buildings and mass assemblies on the level that took place against the trebling of tuition fees in 2010 could spark a national movement. This would put pressure on the Labour government to step in with emergency funding and replace the current inadequate funding model for higher education that relies on UK students being saddled with debt, international students rinsed for every penny, and universities making deals with arms companies and other unethical investments.

In Manchester, where the university is the largest landlord in the city, Socialist Students have played a leading role in the relaunched ‘Fight The Rent Hike’ campaign. This is in response to one of two relatively affordable options for university halls being replaced with one costing £100 a week more, with the rents raised after prospective students had already applied to live there.

With student finance held at below-inflation levels for years, the cost-of-studying crisis has reached such a level that a few quid extra a week in laundry costs represents a big hit for students. Socialist Students at University of Arts London (UAL) launched the Circuit No! campaign against washing machine provider Circuit Go charging over £5 a load for laundry.

To add insult to injury, costs for the same washing machines provided by this company, who have 90% of the UK market stitched up, vary massively between campuses, even within the same city.

As Kat from UAL put it: “Students across the country are being ripped off. It’s time for students to take a stand”.

Morgan Tritton from University of Hertfordshire described the epidemic of violence against women on campus: “We’re not putting up and shutting up”. Socialist Students societies have recently campaigned to improve sexual harassment reporting policies at Herts, won gender neutral changing rooms at Queen Mary University, and reinstated the night bus at University of Liverpool.

Socialist Students national organiser Adam Powell-Davies described how, although we are not at the moment in the middle of a national wave of student struggle, there is a questioning of the system in the minds of young people.

Socialist Students has been making progress, with a record number of students signing up to get involved this academic year. That’s because we don’t just talk about revolution, or fight for every possible gain on campus, but link the two to the need for socialist transformation of society.

To set ourselves up for this new era of opportunities to build support for socialist ideas on campuses, the conference debated and voted to adopt a new constitution for Socialist Students. This re-establishes the democratic structures of Socialist Students, with each society having the right to send motions to conference establishing the political and campaigning direction of the organisation, send a representative to the national steering committee that assesses the work of Socialist Students and takes decisions between conferences, and to vote on the officers responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation.

This includes the existing 40 societies and campus groups active across England and Wales. But the conference also agreed that other student groups with a socialist orientation should be able to affiliate to Socialist Students and participate in its structures.

We expect everyone involved in Socialist Students to agree to aims of fighting for socialism, while encouraging maximum debate on how it can best be achieved. This will mean testing out ideas in the real struggle and then reassessing based on the fullest possible democratic debate within the structures of Socialist Students.

Your Party and the Greens

Already, representatives of Aston Left Society and Kings College London and University College London Your Party supporters were present at the conference.

With the huge surge in support for and membership of the Green Party among young people since the election of Zack Polanski as leader, this could include Green Party societies. As Tom Porter-Brown from Leicester put it, we have to show the way to Green Party members who want to fight austerity and capitalism.

It’s likely that after the May local elections, the Greens will have over 1,000 councillors, including in areas with large student populations, and a greater platform than ever to fight austerity. This will put them to the test as to whether they take an active role in campaigning for more funding for services, or a backseat one, or worse still join council administrations in wielding the axe as they have in Bristol and Sheffield.

Against the arguments that nothing can be done under the current model for funding local councils, we should be prepared to argue that the organised mass of young people and workers can knock back commissioners and council cuts, and that Green councils use reserves and borrowing to put a stop to the cuts.

Say to Greens, let’s come together and prove that the answer to our problems lies in the coffers of the fat cats. After all, no party governing under the constraints of the capitalist markets will be able to fundamentally change things for working-class and young people.

This includes Reform UK. Many spoke on the worry students and young people feel at the prospect of a Reform government, and the growth of the far right beyond that. At the same time, the conference recognised that they have been able to grow due to the failure of the establishment parties and that the working class does not yet have its own mass political voice.

As Ali from Yorkshire pointed out in the closing rally, Reform societies have been set up on some uni campuses but at the moment find a limited echo. When Farage’s social media manager was invited to speak at York University, hundreds came out to protest.

After all, what do Reform have to offer students? They have no answers to the higher education funding crisis, for example, or any of the crises students face. So what better way to cut across support for Reform and the far right than to offer a real alternative? A socialist world free from want and oppression.

Multiple speakers pointed to the two thirds of young people in Britain who, in opinion polls, have said they’d like to live in a socialist economic system. The task now will be to translate the constitution and motions voted on from words on a bit of paper into action, so Socialist Students can be a real factor in the battles emerging on campus.

As Becca Bayman from Liverpool commented in the closing rally, it’s an increasingly difficult time for students, but increasingly important to build a fightback. After this year’s conference, Socialist Students is well placed to lead this.

IWD 2026: End sexism and violence against women

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Text from a Socialist Students leaflet produced for International Women’s Day 2026

International Women’s Day – March 8th – once again takes place in a world of chaos. Wars, economic instability, and attacks on basic rights have become the norm. The Epstein files reveal the sexism and rottenness of the capitalist class.

There is a lot to protest about! Many of the legal and social rights women have won are under threat and exacerbated by capitalist turmoil. Even basics like health care and housing have become a struggle. Sexist and misogynistic ideas are being amplified by powerful figures, not least President Trump.

A major issue for women students is the outrageous levels of sexual harassment and abuse we face. 97% of young women in Britain have experienced sexual harassment. That confirms what we all know from our experiences on campus, on nights out and at work. University and college bosses are more concerned about cost and their reputation than student safety.

Around the world young women are part of the mass movements challenging the sexism, poverty, repression and exploitation of the capitalist system. We’ve had enough, and we need change.

Raising awareness of the issue is not enough. We need action.

That starts with getting organised – and discussing what we want to fight for. Immediate measures that would dramatically improve women’s safety on campus include: free 24/7 shuttle transport; decent lighting; and the expansion of student support services.

Venues can do much more, including distributing free drink covers. All venue staff should have training to identify red flags and how to intervene, with sufficient staffing levels to ensure they can.
Instead of unaccountable uni bosses, we need student and trade union democratic oversight of reporting and complaints procedures so we can have confidence in them.

Socialist Students is campaigning for all of these demands. Winning safe learning and social spaces will mean fighting for funding. Socialist Students fights for full public funding of education and an end to the rotten market model of running education.

Fight for socialism

Prejudices, gender stereotyping, and sexist behaviour should be challenged; that starts with democratic and accountable student committees which should be in control of how training is carried out.

But education alone is not enough. Sexist ideas do not stem from individuals; they are products of the capitalist system we live in.

Systemic problems require systemic solutions. To eliminate gender violence, we need to challenge the root cause of sexist ideas by taking economic and political control out of the hands of the small minority who profit from inequality and oppression.

We need a mass movement with workers and youth at its heart to win the funding and resources we need and fight for a socialist alternative to capitalism.

Get involved with Socialist Students and discuss how you can be part of building that movement.

CLICK HERE to part of building the movement for a socialist alternative to sexism and capitalism

Why we’re coming to Socialist Students conference

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Suzie Matthews, South Wales Socialist Students

The University of South Wales (USW) is going to Socialist Students conference for 2026. For the last year, we have been fighting for the opportunity to bring our Socialist Students society back into existence.

We had to fight to re-register. USW administrators weren’t happy with our campaigning on campus against the war on Gaza, exposing the university’s connections with companies providing software for military drones used by the Israeli army.

Students are enthusiastic about learning of and discussing socialist ideas. Each student brings new ideas and experience – a small-scale version of the energy you can find at the annual conference.

Cardiff Socialist Students has hired a minibus to travel to Manchester this Saturday 14 February to take part in the conference. The seats are full!

Socialist Students conference is an opportunity to get to know like-minded students. It truly gives you a sense of our movement’s scale and energy.

That was my biggest takeaway from last year. It reminded me that we are in a real movement, and that everyone wants a change in our conditions.

Hopefully this year will be similar.

Student loan crisis: Scrap the debt! Fight for free education! Make the super-rich pay!

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Ali Mansfield, Yorkshire Socialist Students Organizer

Current students and graduates are paying the price as the proportion of university funding direct from central government has shrunk dramatically over two decades. Over the same period, the average debt for recent graduates has increased by more than five times, now sitting at well over £50,000 (my own is at £87,763.49).

This huge increase in the amount of debt facing university graduates and hikes in their interest mean a much longer time to pay off the loans. Two thirds of Plan 2 borrowers, who took loans out between 2012 and 2022, see their debt increasing rather than going down, as interest on the loan accrues faster than they can pay it off. Nearly three quarters of Plan 2 borrowers will never pay off their loans before they’re written off in 40 years time!

A graduate tax in all but name?

Repayment thresholds being frozen are posed to mean anyone working full time, even on minimum wage, would start making repayments on their student debt by 2030. Graduates have to pay up to 8% of their income above the thresholds – another tax in all but name! Along with an extended repayment period, and freezing the salary threshold for earlier graduates, this marks a clear attempt to place more of the burden for the university funding crisis on students.

Labour’s decision to raise tuition fees last year only adds to this burden, while having no prospect of making up the funding shortfalls universities face. This is far from the “secure future for higher education and the opportunities it creates” promised in Labour’s 2024 manifesto.

As well as being unfair, the tuition fee model of higher education funding is unsustainable. The marketized system, where universities compete for student enrolment numbers (especially more valuable international students, which universities can charge even more extortionate fees), promotes short-term thinking for institutions to gain a competitive edge against each other. Under a marketized tuition fee model, further attacks on students and workers in the education sector are inevitable.

We need a fully funded higher education system, under the democratic control of workers and students. Free from the constraints of the market system, universities could truly become places of learning for all, with the goal of broadening our understanding of all aspects of life. Universities could sustainably expand their services, creating more opportunities and more jobs.