Socialist Students members organised a march for free education of around 150 in Leeds on 6 March. Students and young workers were attracted from across Yorkshire.

Donations from trade unions, including lecturers' union UCU and transport union RMT, supplied vital funds to produce leaflets. Local trade unionists assisted students in stewarding the march. Bakers' union BFAWU even sent Sarah Woolley, a member of their executive, to speak on our platform.

Sarah, who is a local Greggs worker, linked zero-hour contracts to student fees and debt. As she commented: "You shouldn't have to have a dad who went to Eton to get a university degree!"

Mary Finch, University of Leeds student and one of the event's organisers, also spoke. She is standing to be her student union's education officer. Real students' representatives don't just sit in an office: they get out on the streets and organise.

Marketising

Lily Green is a sixth former and Socialist Students member from Huddersfield. She spoke brilliantly on the disastrous effects of marketising education.

Sam Morecroft, a PhD student at the University of Sheffield, represented the anti-casualisation campaign run by UCU. He highlighted the plight of university teachers paid an exploitative hourly wage. He also stressed the importance of a united front of students and workers in fighting education privatisation.

Many speakers criticised Labour's pathetic pledge to reduce tuition fees to 'only' £6,000 a year. In this context, it was significant that the only speaker for an electoral group was Megan Ollerhead.

Megan is a University of York student organiser. She is also a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC - see page 5). Megan called for students to support TUSC as a union-backed electoral alternative campaigning to abolish all fees and cuts. She also explained that "whatever combination of colours gets in this May, it's still going to be the same flavour ... We need to continue to organise events like this."

Success

Socialist Students members worked hard to build this event, and throughout the demonstration successfully engaged with students and workers alike. Quite a lot joined the march along the route, including a big group of students from Notre Dame sixth form.

This was an excellent starting point for further action from the free education movement throughout the country. It shows once again that Socialist Students is the group on campuses that gets things done, even when the National Union of Students is dragging its heels.

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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.

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