Not their wars and climate disaster

  • For real jobs and decent pay. Ban zero-hours. £15 an hour for all, rising with the cost of living
  • End sky-high rents. We need rent controls and council homes
  • Fully fund our services. Make the super-rich pay!

Build the international youth walkouts on 20 November – Fight for socialist change

The devastating effects of climate change, with wildfires burning; the brutality of war and Trump escalating tensions and conflict, villages and mosques burned by violent settlers in the Palestinian West Bank; and the inability to meet the rising cost of living while the super-rich get richer – all are issues facing young people and the working class internationally.

One in six young people in Britain are unemployed. About two-thirds of 23-year-olds still live with parents, unable to afford rents. More than half of unemployed graduates have not yet found full-time employment a year after finishing uni.

Following all the rules, working hard, taking on huge debt to go to uni – and yet the rigged system still doesn’t offer a way out. Similar pressures facing young people have driven the mass ‘cockroach’ protests in India, forcing the education minister to resign (see page 10). This is the latest of so-called ‘Gen Z’ protests internationally.

Trade unions

It is essential for workers and young people to get organised and fight to defend ourselves and our futures. The Socialist Party is fighting for the trade unions in Britain – which organise over 6 million workers – to lead in the fight against the cost-of-living crisis, and for there to be no let-up on demanding what is needed from the new prime minister Andy Burnham (see pages 3 and 16).

We are also helping to organise youth walkouts in the autumn – part of the international walkouts on 20 November under the banner ‘Youth fight for our future, not their wars’.

If the system can’t afford to fund our schools and NHS, if it can’t afford to keep our pay rising at least in line with rising prices, and it leaves a million young people out of work, education and training – then we can’t afford the system!

As things stand, the vast majority of the world’s wealth and resources are owned by a tiny minority who ruthlessly compete for profits. It is a system which drives war, environmental destruction and poverty.

We need socialist change to take wealth and resources out of capitalist hands, to be brought into public ownership under democratic workers’ control and management. Without bailing out the parasitic big capitalist bosses – compensation only where there is proven need. That way, a socialist economic plan can be developed to meet the needs of all while protecting the environment – and international working-class collaboration can replace war and conflict.