Students get organised, build the socialist opposition

Adam Gillman, Socialist Students

Today young people and students face massive attacks, from the raising of tuition fees affecting both returning and new university students in next academic year, but even simple things like the bus fare cap increase in England.

There have been massive cuts to our public services over the past 14 years and the new Labour government has made it clear that it won’t solve the crisis, and will only be giving a fraction of what local authorities need to fund public services.

There are also the issues of climate change and devastating wars making it seem like we face a bleak future. Over a hundred thousand people have been killed in Gaza, not to mention the wars in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Myanmar and elsewhere.

We now have a Labour government that has made it clear it is going to make the working class continue to pay for the crisis it faces. Labour have attacked working-class and young people since day one, from the refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap, to the cuts to public services and to the university funding crisis, letting universities cut and close courses while simultaneously raising tuition fees.

This is all the consequence of capitalist crisis. Capitalism is a profit system driven primarily by a desire for short-term profits. This is why we are seeing our services getting cut, our tuition fees being raised, and division sowed.

This is why Socialist Students calls for students and trade unions to form a new mass workers’ party that’s democratic and fights for young and working-class people. A party that fights not only to reverse the fee hike but to abolish tuition fees, a party that fights for grants not loans, and a party where students, workers and young people could discuss the way forward.

But why stop there? We need to take water, energy, mail and rail into full public ownership under democratic workers’ control, in addition to the banks and the big monopolies.

If you agree then you should come to the Socialist Students conference where this and more is all being discussed by university and college students and young workers from across the country.

If you agree we need to fightback against attacks on young people and fight for socialist ideas on and off campus, then you should join Socialist Students and get organised in the fightback.

Socialist Students conference 2025

Saturday 8 February 10 am, Highefields centre, Leicester, LE2 0DS