Callum Joyce, Socialist Party National Committee
Poverty, war, climate catastrophe, and oppression – this is the future that capitalism offers millions of young people worldwide.
This system cannot guarantee even a basic standard of living or decent education to the majority of people. But young people and workers are beginning to organise and fight, demanding ‘we want our futures back!’
The heroic ‘Gen Z’ movement of young people in Nepal this month has brought down a hated government in a matter of days, despite brutal police repression and the killing of protesters. Thousands of students are joining workers on the streets, as strikes shake France. Inspiring movements of thousands of youth in Serbia and Turkey have rocked long-standing governments.
And here in Britain, we are saying ‘enough is enough’. Students at schools, colleges, and universities walked out to protest against Donald Trump’s visit to the UK on Wednesday 17 September. Many will have been inspired by teachers’ strikes during the strike wave.
This campaign, initiated by Socialist Students, shows workers and young people in the US that we stand with them against the attacks of the ruthless pro-capitalist Trump regime.
But we’re also protesting against our government here, which has rolled out the red carpet for the president’s visit. Starmer’s Labour doesn’t speak for us.
This month, millions of students are returning for the new academic year. But they will be greeted with a continuing cost-of-living crisis, rising tuition fees, and an education system cut to the bone, increasingly facing financial catastrophe. We need to organise to fight for what we need – fully funded free education, with maintenance grants that we can actually live on – and demand that the parasitic super-rich pay for it.
Over 800,000 people have signed up to support the idea of a new party, founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. It currently leads the polls among 18 to 24-year-olds.
This gives a glimpse of the potential for young people to organise, alongside workers – the most powerful force in the country, with 6.5 million in trade unions – into a mass democratic organisation to fight back against this hated Labour government and the ailing capitalist system that it defends.
More and more young people are drawing the conclusion that they need to join the fight for our futures – we say, fight to make it a socialist future.
