What future does capitalism offer young people? The chasm of wealth inequality grows by the day, as the wealth of the billionaires soars, while wars and climate change inflict misery and threaten the futures of billions of working-class and young people across the globe.

We’re worried about how to make ends meet, and the state of our public services. Travel fares are sky high, while public transport routes have been cut, meaning many of us have to walk for hours to get home from work and college.

Our NHS has been cut to the bone, making it harder than ever to simply get an appointment. The housing crisis makes it impossible for us to live fully independent lives. No wonder 1 in 4 students now face mental health issues.

Our schools, colleges and universities have gone massively underfunded for years. Students used to get grants, not high-interest loans. Now we have our services and courses cut, while greedy bosses make hundreds of thousands of pounds off our education.

Why is this happening? It’s because the system we live under – capitalism – is organised around creating profit for a tiny handful at the top of society over improving the lives of ordinary people.

It’s time to get organised and fight back. Read on to find out more. or click the image above for the pdf.

If Starmer attacks students, we will fight back

Tom Porter-Brown, Birmingham City Socialist Students

Universities suffered cuts, debt, and staff redundancies for the last 14 years under Tory austerity. Will Keir Starmer’s new Labour government change this dire situation?

Universities face a funding crisis. Will Labour let universities go bankrupt, or will it intervene?

Funding must be enough to sustain universities long-term, and avoid cuts to courses, firing staff, and selling off assets. The alternative being pushed by some Labour politicians and vice-chancellors is a blatant attack – increasing tuition fees.

Working-class students are already under such financial strain though, extortionate prices for accommodation, increasing costs of basic necessities such as food, massive debts after graduating. Students shouldn’t have to pay another penny.

The capitalist parties leave working-class and young people without a political voice. But what can students do about it?

In order to oppose the attacks on our education, students need to be organised, and prepared to speak out – and act against both university management and capitalist politicians. And we’ve seen it’s possible, just this last year.

Northampton Socialist Students won rent refunds by organising demonstrations and putting pressure on university management. Surrey Socialist Students helped win tuition fee refunds for Nigerian students facing deportation.

This proves that students and the working class can win. Fights like this are still ongoing, up down the country.

Thousands of students took part in encampments to protest against their universities’ complicity in the seemingly endless slaughter in Gaza. And there is more to be done.

Starmer and the uni bosses must get the message – ‘if you attack us, we will fight back’. By organising on campus as well as mobilising for national demos, if and when that is needed.

Socialist Students meetings are a good chance to discuss socialist ideas with fellow students, learn lessons from revolutions and other mass movements, and plan for action now.

Students and workers need to link their struggles, and support each other. If university staff take strike action and form picket lines, students should join them, and discuss how we can fight back together.

And it’s not limited to universities. We don’t live in isolation.

Students depend on healthcare, public transport, delivery services. If any trade union declares strike action, students should attend these picket lines to build connections with working-class struggle.

Many working-class students have part-time jobs. We can discuss these ideas with co-workers, and build the movement from the ground up.

Socialist Students is here to show that victories can be won for students and workers, and that socialism is worth fighting for.

Fighting back against racism and far right

Jobs, homes, and services for all

Mihaela Ivanova, Queen Mary Socialist Students

Violent riots and protests, instigated by far-right groups, broke out across the country in the summer.

But, a few days later, on 7 August, tens of thousands of people took part in anti-racist counter-protests in response. In North Finchley, we chanted: “Whose streets? Our streets!”

‘Hate marches’

Under the pressure of public opinion, the capitalist newspapers and police tried to heap praise on our anti-racist protests. Yet, for almost a year, they have continuously labelled our peaceful mass protests against the war on Gaza as ‘hate marches’.

The main lesson from the riots is not that we should rely on the police, but on our potential power with united mass action. Bolstering the repressive state apparatus will not negate the daily experience of Black, Asian, and other ethnic minority workers and youth of racist policing.

The fight against racism needs to be stepped up. Imagine if the 7 August protests had been followed up by a massive trade union-led, anti-racism demonstration around the slogan – ‘jobs and homes for all, not racism’. It could have mobilised hundreds of thousands of young people and students, angry about racism and discrimination, and wanting to fight for a decent future.

While this wave of riots and attacks has passed, it is a warning sign of what could happen. The far right has fed off the anger from poverty and the crisis in housing and services, after 14 years of Tory austerity.

The Tories used a war on ‘small boats’ and the inhumane ‘Rwanda scheme’ to try to polarise the working class against the real enemy – the capitalist bosses. Keir Starmer’s continuation of austerity and anti-immigration propaganda will only deepen discontent with capitalist politics.

But the far right is still weak. They were predominantly outnumbered by anti-racist counter-protesters.

The fightback against the far right is not out of sight. Working-class and young people urgently need our own political voice – a new mass workers’ party.

14 years of Tory rule has seen living standards drop, with public services cut to the bone, and overwhelmed by need. Tuition fees and student debt is hight. This will all only worsen with Starmer’s promise of more austerity.

When workers strike

The strike wave against the Tories from the last couple of years showed the strength of the working class to a new generation of fighters. Workers of all backgrounds have more in common with each other than with their capitalist bosses.

Today, the trade unions must take the lead in combating racism. They unite workers regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexuality in a common struggle for decent wages, jobs, homes, and services for all – cutting across the divide-and-rule tactics of the ruling class.

It is essential to link the fight against racism, and other forms of oppression, to the fight against the class exploitation of capitalism. Socialist change can fundamentally change society to be free of all exploitation, oppression, and discrimination.

What is Socialist Students?

We think capitalism is a system that offers no future to the vast majority of people. But if you’re a young person attending school, college, or university this year, chances are we don’t need to convince you of that.

All young people have known growing up is a capitalist system in crisis. It has brought climate disaster, unending war, public services and infrastructure that doesn’t work, soaring cost of living, and more.

Young people have no time to lose in fighting for an alternative to capitalism – for a socialist system that puts the needs of people and the planet before the profits of a tiny few.

That’s what Socialist Students is for. We want to help students get organised in the fight for socialism.

Socialist Students groups hold regular meetings, where students can debate and discuss what ideas are needed to change the world. Our members take those ideas out onto campus, by raising socialist solutions to all the issues facing students, as part of campaigns and protests.

Socialist Students fights for:

• Free education – Scrap tuition fees and end student debt. Replace loans with living grants that rise with inflation
• End low pay – Pay rises for all that rise with inflation, scrap zero-hour contracts. A £15-an-hour minimum wage, with no exemptions for age. Support striking workers
• End the housing crisis – Mass building of high-quality affordable council housing. With rent control
• Councils should restore public services – Needs-based no-cuts people’s budgets. Restore youth services, open libraries, reverse cuts, and reemploy sacked workers
• Renationalise energy companies and other private utilities – Socialist plan for climate change, including expanded renationalised cheap or free public transport
• End to all wars and occupations – The right to self-determination, on a socialist basis. For international workers’ unity
• Take the wealth off the super-rich – Nationalise the banks and top 150 companies, under democratic workers’ control and management
• Tories have been smashed – Now build the socialist opposition. Build a new mass workers’ party on a socialist programme
• Join the student fightback!

Students build a movement to Stop the slaughter in Gaza

Saada Mohammed, Leicester Socialist Students

We have witnessed eleven months of brutal slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, and increasingly in the West Bank too. It has exposed to the world how capitalist politicians do not value human life, despite what they say about wanting an end to the conflict.

Many people here in the UK have felt anger at the situation in Gaza and taken to the streets to protest. Many students have also taken things into their own hands, protesting against their university bosses, calling for divestment from arms companies and companies that invest in Israel. School and college students have organised walkouts and protests in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Towards the end of last term, student encampments were staged up and down the country, exposing universities’ links to arms companies and banks. Socialist Students members were involved with many of these. We take part in the movement raising the need for a mass struggle of workers and young people here and abroad – putting pressure on governments and politicians, and pointing to the fact that it is the working class that has the real power in society. We also explain the important role of the trade unions in Britain, together organising nearly 7 million workers, and the need bring an end to the capitalist system which breeds conflict and war.

Last term, Socialist Students worked towards linking up protests at different universities. In Leicester, where I was a student, we organised a march from De Montfort University to the University of Leicester, expressing our discontent about the way our universities are being run.

We call for an end to the marketisation of higher education and an end of the tuition-fee funding model. Universities are becoming ever more reliant on money from big business, including from arms companies such as BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, due to cuts in funding from government. University education should be free for all, and fully funded by making the super-rich pay.

The huge determined protests against the slaughter in Gaza have defied attempts by politicians and police to intimidate them. That defiance led to the hated Suella Braverman being sacked as home secretary.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners standing in the general election had a huge effect in a whole number of constituencies. Jeremy Corbyn was reelected, in addition to another four anti-war independent MPs. Student protests this term can have a big effect too.

If you want to be part of the fightback, get involved!

What you can do

• Organise a protest or walkout at your uni, school or college
• Lobby your local politician or university management
• Get your students’ union to arrange transport to the next Gaza demo
• Join Socialist Students, help bring an end to capitalism, war and oppression

Uni arms funding: Open the books!

How much money does your university get from arms companies profiting from the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians, or other people killed in wars and conflicts around the world?

We say to the uni bosses: open the books! Let us see the details of all your grubby deals, who is giving you dirty money and where our tuition fees money is going.

Give students and university workers a democratic say over how our universities are run. Fight for a fully funded education system!