Students

Climate Change and Socialist Struggle: New pamphlet out now!

September 8, 2021

Tom Costello
67% of young people support socialism over capitalism – Join the fight today!

July 7, 2021

Socialist Alternative
Tories plan to decimate university arts courses: build a fightback now!

May 12, 2021

Student Socialist Alternative
While the Tories deny racism, school students walk out to #DecoloniseEducation

April 8, 2021

Tom Costello
Racism at Glasgow University exposed: For mass action against oppression!

March 1, 2021 Black Lives Matter, Glasgow, racism, Scotland

Zahra Hasni Socialist Alternative Scotland
Solidarity with Student Rent Strikers! Sign our petition

February 10, 2021

Student Socialist Alternative

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Climate Change and Socialist Struggle: New pamphlet out now!

We publish below the introduction to the latest publication from Student Socialist Alternative – “Climate Change and Socialist Struggle”. To order your copy today, click here!

36 pages, £2/£3 solidarity price + postage.

Student Socialist Alternative has produced this pamphlet to coincide with the mass mobilisations around November’s COP26 UN Climate Change Summit. From 31 Oct – 12 Nov, Glasgow’s luxury hotels will be booked out to make way for thousands of government representatives eager to whitewash capitalism’s role in driving the world towards climate catastrophe.

The city will become home to a crowd of NGOs, capitalist politicians and ‘green’ businesspeople looking to appear like they are taking action on climate change. As of now, capitalist governments across Europe and elsewhere have used this year post-Covid to sell their ‘green’ credentials to prevent the increased threat of direct action from below by a new generation of young people and workers who are ready to do whatever it takes to ensure we can have a sustainable future on this planet.

Whatever promises the Tories and their counterparts make will be far from enough. While they maintain their fraudulent pledge to ‘build back greener’ in the aftermath of the pandemic, a widespread network of connections continues to exist between this government and fossil fuel industry interests that brazenly choose to prioritise their profits over human and animal lives. After all, the ruling class can always fly by private jet to the safer corners of the world while the poorest and most oppressed of the world face the consequences of their actions.

This finds its worst and deadliest expression in the ranks of the Tory Party. Ruling class ignorance and disregard for the lives of ordinary people were seen on full display just the other week when Viscount Ridley, a multi-millionaire high ranking Tory member of the House of Lords penned an article in The Times arguing that climate change would be beneficial by making the world warmer and thus nicer to live in.

Less blatantly ignorant but just as murderous is the argument from a collection of right-wing Tory MPs who have taken to dismissing net zero carbon emissions as a “fantasy”. Although these deadly forms of climate denial must be exposed, even the ‘mainstream’ Tory position is steeped in climate denialism. The misnamed Conservative Environmentalist Network itself, for instance, argues in favour of paying off giant corporations to achieve ‘net zero by 2050’ – long after we will have passed many catastrophic tipping points.

But nor does the approach of the likes of Starmer’s Labour and the SNP provide anything in the way of an alternative. While capitalism drives the most defining crisis for humanity and animal species in history, Starmer remains concerned solely with eliminating any last traces he can of socialists from the party, including by walking back on even the modest climate pledges of the Corbyn era.

Meanwhile, the SNP, headed by Sturgeon, while talking morally on Twitter about how “all that matters is that COP26 delivers an outcome to meet the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees’ (the window for which will soon be gone and will not prevent a huge amount of already “baked in” climate destruction!), has often acted in much of the same way as any other corrupt big business party.

The SNP in government in Scotland has instead repeatedly refused to implement programmes of public ownership and nationalisation of the energy sector to provide alternative green and high quality employment for workers in North Sea oil and gas, instead promising it will do all it can to prop up polluting industries. The Scottish Greens have recently entered into government with the SNP, but their programme, which refuses to tackle capitalist interests head-on, means the underlying system responsible for this crisis will remain untouched. The Greens’ involvement will unfortunately not mark a serious departure from the SNP’s current course.

All of this highlights more urgently than ever that we need an alternative – one based in struggle against big business interests, one that roots itself in the fight for a society based on meeting the needs of people and the planet, not profit.

This is why the International Socialist Alternative – a revolutionary organisation based in over 30 countries on all continents is making COP26 its chance to raise the need for a bold programme for socialist change.

If you read this and agree with what we have to say, join us in the struggle today, for a socialist world, free of oppression, poverty and environmental destruction! Join Student Socialist Alternative!

Order your copy today here.
67% of young people support socialism over capitalism – Join the fight today!

Capitalism today is riddled with crisis. Official death tolls place the global loss of life from Covid-19 at around 4 million, which is bound to be an underestimation. At the same time, the ongoing and deepening wildfires across Canada and elsewhere reveal starkly that, for all the talk of ‘greening’ capitalism, the climate crisis continues to ravage the world, while a small band of profiteers rake in their billions from it.

It will come as no surprise for Marxists then to see that 67% of people between the ages of 16 and 34 in Britain prefer socialism over capitalism. This news, found in a study commissioned by the ultra-neoliberal Institute for Economic Affairs and reported by the news-site politics.co.uk contains some striking figures:
- 75% agreed that “climate change is specifically a capitalist problem”.
- 78% agreed that capitalism is to blame for the ongoing housing crisis that has impacted on young people the hardest.
- 75% agreed that “socialism is a good idea, but has failed in the past because it has been badly done.”
Rather than believing the false propaganda peddled by the ruling class about capitalism, young people have been led by their daily experiences to draw these conclusions. Far from providing ‘freedom’ like we are told, this system provides only skyrocketing rents, low-paid and insecure work, and a capitalist elite that sows division and oppression to maintain its power.

Why you should join Socialist Alternative

Already, the impact of this change in attitudes towards socialism has been reflected in struggle on the streets. The past year under the pandemic has seen significant waves of protest – from last year’s BLM explosion, to the student rent strikes, to mass demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine, against gender-based violence and threats to the right to protest. We are members of International Socialist Alternative – fighting to build and link struggles from Columbia, to Myanmar and beyond, as part of the global fight against exploitation and oppression.

What has been dismissed as a ‘woke generation’ by the right is actually coming to see there is no alternative to struggle against this capitalist system. Fighting for our future requires it! But in these movements, what will be needed to guarantee further victories is real and solid organisation. We need an organisation that will, while taking part in all such battles, draw them together for a united opposition to capitalist rule, and fighting for the revolutionary change and socialist planning that is needed all around the world.

This is the kind of organisation that Socialist Alternative is fighting to build today. Join us to play your role in building a movement putting forward the only programme that will win real liberation for the working class and all the oppressed – for socialism.

Join us today!

Read more on what we stand for here
Tories plan to decimate university arts courses: build a fightback now!

A recent ‘consultation’, launched at short notice by the Office for Students (OfS) – a subsection of the Department for Education – has proposed a 50% cut to courses in the arts at UK universities for the 2021-2022 academic year, coming into effect from September onwards. This suggestion has been made under the pretext of prioritising “high value” courses such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects, as well as healthcare. However, according to the proposals this would come at the expense of “high-cost” courses including music, dance, drama, media, performing arts and archaeology which, scandalously, have been dismissed by the Tories as not “strategic priorities”.

Students on full-time arts courses currently receive £243 in funding (2020-21) from the OfS; but the proposed plan would bring this down to £121.50. Under the plan, spending for non-prioritised subjects will be cut overall from £36m to £19m, ‘saving’ almost £20m to be redirected to other areas such as nursing and computing. These proposals have been met with outrage from workers in the creative industries, as well as from students and staff in the arts.

According to the Musicians’ Union: “The proposed funding cut will be catastrophic for music provision at HE level, affecting our members’ work, the financial viability of music courses, and training for the next generation of musicians and music professionals”.

The Tories’ priorities

Subjects such as healthcare and STEM are undoubtedly important, especially given the recent context of the pandemic, and with a shortage of nursing staff in the NHS thanks to decades of Tory underfunding and privatisation. But at the same time, for many people around the world, the experience of lockdown has highlighted the importance of the arts in society as millions turned toward books, music, film and other media to maintain their mental health, and social and cultural connections. So what gives the government a license to effectively deem this as a waste for funding? Why not increase funding for both?

Already, the impact of years of government underfunding for the arts has led many young and working class people to see the arts as something that is not ‘for them’. If we allow this to happen, these cuts will further compound this, decimating arts departments in many universities and further excluding students from working-class backgrounds in a subject that is already all too often seen as a middle-class pursuit.

Hidden in the details is plans for further attacks beyond the 50%. The Office for Students adds even further that, on top of the existing cut, they would then “potentially seek further reductions in future years”, indicating the Tories’ plan to whittle down the curriculum even further in the long term. It will not be lost on arts students that this is the same government behind the “Rethink. Reskill. Reboot.” ad campaign last October which pushed for arts workers (such as the infamously fictitious ballerina “Fatima”) to leave their profession for jobs in cyber.

For years, university courses and services have been strangled by cuts across the board. The brunt of this has been borne by staff and students. Last year, courses were slashed at universities such as SOAS University of London. Staff at the University of Brighton are currently fighting to defend the on-campus nursery against closure.

In 2015, University of the Arts London (UAL) provoked a backlash from students and staff by cutting over 500 foundation course places. For many working-class students, these foundation courses were essential to getting onto the full course.

None of this is to deny that many STEM courses will urgently need extra funding, which has been a point made for years by research bodies, student groups and education unions. But universities need more funding in all courses and all services they provide. These proposals offer no real solution for students or university departments, but will instead pit them against each other over what the Tories want to present as a dwindling supply of money.

But the wealth exists in society to guarantee full funding for all courses. Vice Chancellors receive an average salary of £350,000 per year, and the profits of the ruling class have skyrocketed over the course of the pandemic.

Students, cultural workers and university staff need to get organised to fight back against cuts to university services, and to demand a fully-funded, democratically controlled education system that can genuinely support the needs of society.

Student Socialist Alternative stands with all staff and students facing the threat of cuts to their courses. We will be launching campaigns fighting for a full cancellation of these planned cuts, but also for proper funding and a plan to reclaim education to end marketisation and the destructive effects of the capitalist market on our universities. If you want to help us build this fightback, join us today and get involved!

Student Socialist Alternative calls for:
- Solidarity with Higher Education staff and the University and College Union. Prepare to ballot for militant industrial action to fight cuts to any university courses.
- Organise student protests on campus in every area to defend our courses and to stand with university staff.
- All universities which will be affected should demand action now to stop their courses closing.
- Full funding for university courses, student housing and tuition fees.
- For an end to lavish VC pay packets to help cover the costs. For a fully publicly-owned and properly funded education system run under the democratic control of students, staff and the community.

Find more events local to you on our branches' Facebook pages

Students

Climate Change and Socialist Struggle: New pamphlet out now!

67% of young people support socialism over capitalism – Join the fight today!

Tories plan to decimate university arts courses: build a fightback now!

While the Tories deny racism, school students walk out to #DecoloniseEducation

Racism at Glasgow University exposed: For mass action against oppression!

Solidarity with Student Rent Strikers! Sign our petition

GET INVOLVED!

UPCOMING EVENTS

Climate Change and Socialist Struggle: New pamphlet out now!

67% of young people support socialism over capitalism – Join the fight today!

Tories plan to decimate university arts courses: build a fightback now!