Click here to go to photos and reports of walkouts across the country
As people in Gaza starve to death, and thousands are massacred just queuing for food, Donald Trump is visiting the UK, invited by Keir Starmer, to feast on a luxury banquet with the King.
Socialist Students is helping to organise walkouts at schools, colleges and universities. Socialist Students is sending a message to Trump and Starmer: We won’t stand for your capitalist system which awards privileges to the warmongers and profits to the super-rich while creating wars, climate catastrophe, racism and poverty for the rest of us.
This is our chance to fight back. Let’s get organised for a real future. For a socialist world free from war, poverty and oppression. Click here to read all the reasons why we’re walking out
Join the fight for socialist change
TJ Diniz Mota, Leeds Socialist Students
Donald Trump’s return to Britain is a reminder that the system works for one class – the billionaire bosses – for one purpose: profit.
Trump, as US president, is the face of global capitalism, a system that puts corporate interest before people. While he tours red carpets and eats dinner with the king, wages are driven down, racism and division are stirred up, and genocide continues. But Trump is only the loudest voice of a system that also dominates our lives here in Britain.
Keir Starmer’s Labour government has left working-class young people behind; sky-high rents, poverty wages, collapsing mental health services, and privatised education are an everyday reality. The launch of Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party has shown how many people are hungry for change as nearly a million have signed up for more information. But history teaches us that unless a new party is rooted in fighting for socialism, with workers in the driving seat, it will be pulled back into the same old compromises with the bosses’ system that have failed before.
So, what do we mean by socialism? Today, a tiny rich elite own and control almost everything from the banks to companies and land. They decide how society runs, and their priority is always self-preservation. The capitalists produce what will make a profit for them, and pro-capitalist politicians represent their interests. That’s why billions can be spent on endless wars and genocides while students can’t afford rent, and why fossil fuel giants rake in record profits while the planet burns. Socialism flips this on its head. With democratic public ownership of the economy, run by and for ordinary people, we could use society’s resources to meet human need. That means: good homes for all, fully funded education and healthcare, green jobs that protect the planet, and a future free from poverty and oppression.
But ideas alone don’t change the world. Organisation does. Young people have always been at the forefront of movements that shook society, from the fight against apartheid in South Africa, to walkouts against war and injustice.
That’s why Socialist Students and the Socialist Party fight for young people to get organised, to fight for a socialist programme and link up with workers in struggle. We organise in schools, colleges and universities to give young people a real voice and connect our struggles internationally. We fight for any improvements to the lives of workers and young people but don’t just settle for reforms. We fight for a world where we take control of our future. Joining us means joining thousands of young people and workers who know that change doesn’t come from the top, but from the masses when we stand together.
After Trump’s visit… Let’s get organised!
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 or 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 or 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.
Reports and photos from the walkouts
Pimlico Academy, South West London
As students at Pimlico Academy arrived this morning, we announced on our megaphone that Trump is in the UK and that students across the country are walking out against him and everything he represents. Many students gathered around to hear what we had to say, but they were quickly shooed in by senior management.
Socialist Students members have been leafleting the school since July, and we’ve had a great response from students. But the school management wants to clamp down on the students’ right to protest, even taking leaflets out of students’ hands as they walked in. One student, who we gave a leaflet to earlier this week, told us it had been ripped up by his teacher. He and his friends told us: “Keep up the good work”. When one student asked the headteacher why they couldn’t have a leaflet, he replied: “Because it’s nonsense”! Thank you for your balanced political analysis, sir! We don’t think it’s nonsense for young people to get organised for a future without war, poverty, climate chaos, racism, and all the horrors that Trump represents.
In that spirit, Socialist Students then went down to Grey Coats School Sixth Form down the road. We got an amazing response! Dozens of students gathered outside to listen to us explaining on the megaphone why students are walking out today. We pointed to the horror of Trump being welcomed to the UK with a banquet with Starmer and the King, while in Gaza thousands starve. Almost everyone there took a leaflet. We’ve already had contact with students saying they want to walk out and join the protest in London later today.
Adam Powell Davis
Enfield, London
A student at Latymer School in Enfield got in contact with us in the weeks leading up to Trump’s visit. They had taken in leaflets and posters with details about the assembly point for the walkout. Several of those who walked out did so because they had seen posters pinned up in the toilets! Others were given a leaflet at the school gates.
On the day itself, senior teachers did all they could to persuade students not to protest, others gave quiet words of encouragement. The argument from the head and deputies was that a walkout would be too dangerous. Students responded to say Trump in the White House is dangerous!
As we gathered at the park next to school, students appeared one by one. Some had stayed off for the morning because they didn’t want to be locked in. Lots of those who assembled had never met before and were excited to meet like-minded students.
Confidence grew as we walked down the road to Edmonton Green station and cars beeped in support. People on the train wanted to discuss all topics political with us – it’s not every day that a group of protesting teenagers gets on to your carriage!
Arriving in central London we joined the Socialist Students contingents.
Plans are being made for a lunchtime meeting at the school in the next week or so to discuss what next to fight back!
Josh Asker
Online meeting after the walkout: discuss the next steps
- Sunday 21 September 12pm
- Zoom meeting ID: 859 2586 9207
