Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is increasing tuition fees for the first time in eight years, to an all-time high of £9,535 per year. Starmer is protecting the rich while he buries students in debt for the rest of their lives.
This is yet another broken promise for the Prime Minister, who back in 2020 lied through his teeth when he pledged to abolish tuition fees.
Under the Tories, tuition fees have tripled and young people are leaving university with nearly £60,000 worth of debt.
Let’s be blunt: we need to end the scandal of spiralling student debt. #AnotherFutureIsPossible https://t.co/qZuoZOR2Pc
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) February 11, 2020
In May 2023, he said he would ‘likely move on’ from this promise, saying he wanted to see “fairer solutions”.
His idea of a “fairer solution” is putting students over £70,000 of debt – including both tuition fee loans and maintenance loans – for merely wanting an education and a better chance at life.
Meanwhile, students face worsening education, worsening living conditions, and a decline in every aspect of student life.
Scandalously, Starmer has claimed that this rise in tuition fees is necessary to fund our crumbling NHS.
This nonsense claim is a purely divisive tactic. There’s enough money in society to fund both the crumbling healthcare system and the crumbling education system.
The problem is that the money is in the pockets of the rich and big business.
While breaking its promises to workers and young people, Starmer’s government is staying true to its promises to the capitalists.
This “party of business” would rather see students swamped in debt, universities run for profit, and the education system gutted, than threaten the profits of the rich.
Starmer is a capitalist politician. His policies will always prop up the capitalist system, putting profits and big business ahead of the interests of the working class and young people.
As we saw with the recent autumn budget, and with the £87 billion pledged to defence spending, this is a government of bombs, not books.
Thirteen years ago, when the tuition fee cap was last raised by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition, this sparked a mass movement of students on the streets. Today’s students are even more radicalised, having lived through nothing but austerity and crisis.
Only by overthrowing capitalism – the system which puts profit before need – can we end these attacks on our class. This is what the RCP has set out to do.
We say:
- Down with Starmer’s austerity government!
- Fund free education and maintenance grants for all by expropriating the rich!
- Reverse privatisation! Kick the profiteers off campus!
- For books, not bombs! Scrap arms spending, and invest in education instead!
- For democratic control of universities by workers and students!
Warwick University welcomes the far right
At the end of last year, footage was leaked that showed Tory society members dancing and singing along to the Nazi song ‘Erika’ while others yelled slogans like “Heil the chairman” and “Kill the Hughs”.
EXCL 🚨 Tory student group held black-tie dinner two weeks ago where members sang German marching song used by the Nazis in WW2
Warwick Uni Conservative Association sorry after dancing to “Erika” — used by SS and Wermacht and today white supremacists https://t.co/ZdQvhgFvBd pic.twitter.com/9Qva9rUqqP
— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) June 30, 2024
In response, the university management suspended the group over the summer break (the time when no student activity happens).
On the first week back, however, they were welcomed and allowed to advertise their society to first-years, who had no idea what happened. All those who protested this and tried to inform the freshers were attacked by security.
Over the Tory-free summer, meanwhile, the university was paid to host ‘The Witan ’ – a far-right conference with talks on ‘Woke Eugenics’ and books on sale like Breeding the Human Herd, which rabbits Nazi arguments on eugenics.
The university provided no warning of this to all the students still on campus for extra exams.
We don’t know how much the uni bosses pocketed in exchange for hosting this fascist forum. But we do know how much they paid private security to police pro-Palestine students last year: a whopping £144,000!
If you’re a student: this is where your money goes!
Hudhaifa A, Warwick University
