Tag: starmer

Trump and Blair: Hands off Palestine!

On By adampd1968In UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

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Students have fought back – now let’s get organised

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Next steps after the youth walkouts against Trump

Socialist Students hosting an ‘open mic’ at the end of the Trump Not Welcome demonstration in London, 17.09.25

Across the UK, students have walked out in protest against Donald Trump’s state visit.

Trump was invited by our prime minister, Keir Starmer, to join him for a luxury banquet with the King. Thousands of miles away from the royal palace, the Palestinians in Gaza meanwhile continue to starve – a horror that Trump and Starmer have backed up through their support of the Israeli state’s war of terror.

By walking out of school, college and university on September 17, young people have sent a clear message to Trump, Starmer and all the big business politicians: “We won’t stand for your agenda of war, poverty and discrimination. We’re ready to fight for our futures!”

The youth walkouts against Trump’s state visit show that young people can have a voice when we unite and fight together. Now we need to get organised in our schools and colleges, to make sure the voice of our generation is heard as loudly and consistently as possible, so that we can have a real say over what goes on in our lives.

We need a say in stopping our government supporting war in Gaza and all around the world. We need to demand and fight for our right to protest. We need a say in how our education is run. And that’s just the start of what we need to fight for, if we want a world where our lives come before profit!

That’s why Socialist Students is calling on young people to build students’ unions in schools and colleges across the UK, as the best way to continue the fight for our futures beyond September 17.

Students’ unions can give us a voice

A students’ union means young people coming together, sharing our ideas for how to fight back, and then all pulling together with a plan to win.

The first step is holding a meeting of everyone who is interested in campaigning in your school/college. You could start by inviting anyone who protested against Trump. But to get even more people involved, you could put up posters and give out leaflets to other students, advertising the date and time for your meeting.

In the meeting, everyone can have a chance to share their thoughts on what the main issues are facing students in your school/college, and what students should do about it. There might be anger at war, racism or the climate crisis. Or maybe students have had enough of high cafeteria prices, or the expensive cost of school trips. Students have the right to protest on all of this and more!

There are lots of ways to campaign on the issues students face. You could hold a protest at lunchtime. You could write a protest letter to your headteacher, explaining the issues you face and the changes you want to see, and get as many students as possible to sign it. You could all organise to attend an upcoming protest in your town/city, and make posters to bring with you.

The key thing is getting people to discuss and agree on an issue, make a plan to protest, and then do it – as a team! That’s the power of a students’ union.

Do you want help building a students’ union at your school/college?

Get in touch

Join Socialist Students

Socialist Students is an organisation of young people who want to fight for socialism. We are active in schools, colleges and universities across the UK.

Socialism means a world where the needs of people come before the profits of big business and the super-rich. Socialism would be a world where people work together to end the problems facing humanity: war, climate change, poverty, racism and all forms of discrimination.

Socialist Students fights now for every step possible towards a socialist world. We know the wealth exists to give everyone a good life, but it’s in the hands of a tiny minority of super-rich people: the capitalists. In all our campaigns, we point towards the need for a movement of working-class and young people to take that wealth into our hands instead – for socialist change, not capitalist chaos.

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Trump visit dates confirmed – students are ready to protest on September 17

On By adampd1968In Uncategorized1 Comment

Socialist Students press release

Buckingham Palace has booked in Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK for 17-19 September.

Already hundreds of students have signed up to walk out of their schools, colleges and universities on Wednesday 17 September – the day that Trump arrives in the UK – as part of the Youth Walkout Against Trump campaign.

The youth walkouts, initiated by Socialist Students, will be a protest against the chaos that Trump’s presidency represents for young people’s futures globally.

Students will be walking out to instead demand a future to look forward to – for free education, a decent job, and the guarantee of a high-quality and affordable home for all; for an end to climate crisis; and for a world free from war, oppression and exploitation.

With Trump’s visit taking place while Parliament is in recess, Keir Starmer and his Labour government will be hoping to escape the firing line of mass protests like those which Trump provoked during his first state visit to the UK in 2018.

But the Youth Walkout Against Trump campaign will not let Labour off the hook. Adam Gillman, Socialist Students national organiser,said: “By building the youth walkouts, we can send a powerful message to young people and workers in America that we stand with them against Trump – not with Starmer, who issued the invite for this state visit.”

TJ, a 19-year-old student in Leeds, said: “Labour has made cut after cut to young people’s futures while bosses make record profits. now they roll out the red carpet for oppressive leaders abroad. I am building for these walkouts to give young people a way to show Starmer’s Labour that this is not what the public voted for.”

Lauren from Wrexham said: “Trump’s visit to the UK is an opportunity to fight back; not just against him but the capitalist system he upholds, which puts the interests of big business above the lives of working-class people. These walkouts are a chance to stand up to Trump, as well as our government who welcome him with open arms, and all other leaders who uphold this corrupt system! That’s why I’m building the youth walkouts against Trump.”

Penelope, a college student from Preston, highlighted the common attacks facing students either side of the Atlantic: “Trump has cut funding to US universities, and has attacked students and staff standing up on issues like Palestine. Meanwhile Starmer’s government here raises universities tuition fees and continues the rampant underfunding of all levels of education. By walking out when Trump visits we are showing that young people everywhere have to fight for a decent education, in a capitalist world where none of our hard-won rights can be taken for granted”.

While the university term has come to a close, and schools and sixth forms break up next week, Socialist Students will be continuing to build the walkout campaign over the summer – including calling public youth meetings in towns and cities throughout the UK to discuss how young people can build the walkouts and get organised to win a decent future under this Labour government.

Click to get involved

Socialist Students post-election statement

On By adampd1968In UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Tories have been smashed. Reduced to their lowest vote in a century, they have been punished for 14 years of attacks on the working class, the young and the vulnerable.

There are plenty of reasons for students to be pleased that the Tories are gone. Their broken higher education funding model has left universities at risk of bankruptcy. Average student debt has soared to £50,000, and a collapse in maintenance support has driven a historic student cost-of-living crisis. Facing the fury of students, the Tories have encouraged university managements to clamp down on our right to protest.

But the new Labour government has no intention of improving our situation. Starmer has made clear that his government will stick to the Tories’ fiscal rules. He will use his landslide Labour majority to carry out more attacks on workers and young people. Already the Labour manifesto has promised nothing more than “existing funding” (i.e. Tory austerity budgets) for post-18 jobs and training, and it commits to maintaining wage disparity between 16 to 17-year-olds and the rest of the workforce. It is also silent on fixing the university funding crisis.

No wonder there was no enthusiasm for Labour in this election. According to a poll released just days before polling, half of people planning to vote Labour were only doing so to get the Tories out. The Labour popular vote in this election was lower than in 2017 and 2019, when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, with an anti-austerity programme that inspired hundreds of thousands of young people.

As Socialist Students said at our conference in March:

Although there will inevitably be hope amongst some that a Labour government would mean an improvement to the day-to-day lives of workers and young people, any political party wedded to the capitalist system would be compelled sooner or later to carry out attacks on workers and young people. The stormy economic backdrop to the incoming Starmer-led government, acting within the economic constraints of capitalism, will push it rapidly into confrontation with students, young people, and the working class.

The next Labour government is set to come up against struggles on an even bigger scale than what developed [during the strike wave]. This will not only mean strikes, but struggle among students and young people.

The student fightback against Starmer’s Labour has already begun; it has been a big feature of the student encampments, and of the Gaza anti-war movement in general.

Now let’s take the movement further. We need a mass movement of all students who want to fight for a decent future, and for a free and democratic education system. That means getting organised on campus, linking up with the workers’ movement, and taking steps towards a new mass party that unites workers and young people in the struggle to:

  • Take on a Starmer government
  • Kick out all the capitalist politicians
  • Fight for socialism

Socialist Students has been preparing for the fightback that will continue under a Starmer government. Join us!

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