It is clear that the current crisis of capitalism has caused a heightening of class antagonisms. Across the world workers are striking to protect jobs and wages, and new organisations are being born of the class struggle. In recent months there has been particular focus on the troubles of the Greek people. In Greece there has been a tradition of working class resistance against neo-liberal economic policies and state brutality. There the so-called ‘socialist’ government has obediently told the EU that there will be massive public sector cuts. This has given birth to a mass movement among the people in defence of the concessions already won from the capitalist class. But the Greek people are not alone; such battles are taking place across the world.

In Britain also the unemployed, the workers, the students and the wider youth face tough times. Workers are being made redundant, wages are being slashed and pensions are being attacked. Labour has planned severe cuts on the public sector and the conservatives have vowed even deeper cuts if they win the general election. Rising unemployment is hitting young people especially hard with over 1 million young people unemployed. Students face cuts on education and a large increase in tuition fees. The Liberal Democrats, who previously campaigned alongside student activists against fees, have now stabbed them in the back by abandoning their previous pledge. This has now been exposed as the electoral posturing it always was. What is certain is that the 3 main parties are all too willing to make the majority pay for the failures of a system that benefits the few.

In response to these assaults there have been numerous attempts to organise. The National Campaign against Fees and Cuts has been launched (see the report of our intervention here:) and only 2 days after the opening convention students took action. On the 8^th of February students at Sussex University went into occupation with the following demands:

‘No compulsory redundancies’ , ‘Rein in executive pay’, ‘Resist fees and cuts in budgets’, ‘Academic freedom’ and ‘Protect the student union budget’.

The occupation attracted many messages of solidarity from students across the world who shared the same interests and ideas. The brutal response from the state shows that we must also raise demands about politics and how we are ruled – we must take such attacks seriously.

The campaign went on to announce a ‘wave of action’ starting March 1^st under the banner of ‘Stop the cuts, End fees, Tax the rich to fund education!’. These are all worthy aims, but as we made clear at the conference, unless we can immediately address the political disunity of the current far left and take clear steps towards a united revolutionary student organisation then our fight is hindered from the outset.

We must advance immediate demands around the crisis, such as:

• Abolish Tuition fees, Free education for all!
• Tax the rich to fund education, no cutting on our future!
• Stop the establishment and state funding of private schools, For a secular education without elitism or intolerance
• For the Provision of youth and sports centres
• For the provision of youth housing

At the same time though, it is important that we ascribe on our banner the idea that any gains we make under capitalism are always liable to be attacked, rolled back and absorbed by the capitalist class. Nowhere is this clearer than with trade unions: they were a key advance for the working class, but have been absorbed by bourgeois society, crucially through the labour bureaucracy, who have an objective interest in the continuation of wage labour. We have to point out at all times that the working class must organise both defensively and to take power – crucially at the level of the European Union. Spreading this idea is not ‘abstract propaganda’ but essential to develop working class political culture and theory. We must win the battle of ideas.