Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser
Double-digit inflation has slashed the value of student maintenance loans by 7% this year, pushing students to drastic measures to continue their studies. Over half of university students are now cutting back on essentials to make ends meet. One in four have taken on new debts and nine in ten students say they are worried about the cost of living.
This crisis is set to deepen, as the government prepares to increase maintenance loans in England by just 2.8% next year, while inflation is sky high. What is posed is a sharp increase in university dropouts, as the Tories attack working-class students’ ability to continue their education beyond the age of 18.
However, the objective crisis facing students is in stark contrast to the current low level of student-led struggle on the campuses. At this stage, students are generally enduring attacks from the Tories and university management, as opposed to fighting them. A central task of this year’s Socialist Students conference will be to lay out what programme is necessary and how to organise to begin transforming this mood – from one of resignation, to fighting back. That task will be the main theme of the morning session, ‘Organising, fighting and striking back against the cost-of-living crisis’.
A spark could ignite explosions on campus. It is possible that struggle could rapidly break out in the universities in the next period, similar to what happened with the rent strikes two years ago. We will be discussing perspectives for UK higher education, to raise some of the issues that students may find ourselves campaigning on, in addition to the cost-of-living crisis.
This discussion will be further developed during the motions discussion in the afternoon, in which conference will hear motions from groups around the country on a number of key issues affecting the lives of students and young people. These motions will propose policies to be included in the national programme of Socialist Students for the coming year, which conference delegates will vote on as well as a steering committee for 2023-24.
As a campaigning organisation, Socialist Students puts forward concrete demands that students can fight for to improve our lives – for example, living maintenance grants, or rent controls in university accommodation. But we also link those demands to the need for a socialist society where those improvements would be possible on a permanent basis. Deciding what demands to put forward, and at what stage, requires an understanding of the world around us – where it’s come from, where it is currently, and where it’s heading – and the outlook and ideas that exist among the different forces in society. The theoretical workshops at the start of the afternoon session will apply this method of analysis – Marxism – across a number of topics:
- How do Marxist economics explain the cost-of-living crisis?
- Ending violence against women – the fight today and the origin of women’s oppression
- How could a 24-hour general strike be achieved?
- How can students fight for a new political party?
Finally, the conference will close with a rally under the heading, ‘The struggle for socialism across the globe’. This will feature socialist fighters from around the world, from Sri Lanka to Nigeria. In a new era of overlapping crises – social, economic, political, ecological – young people everywhere are looking for an alternative to the current system. The closing rally will place the struggle of workers and young people in Britain in the context of a global capitalist system facing its deepest crisis for generations, which can give us confidence in our fight for a socialist world.
