Students protest in solidarity with Palestine

Queen Mary Uni, East London

Students at Queen Mary University in East London organised a protest to mark a year of brutal attacks on Palestinians by Israeli state forces. Mihaela Ivanova, Socialist Students activist and Socialist Party member, gave a speech to the protest:

❝The student anti-war movement has opened up people’s eyes to the complicity of universities in the war, and Queen Mary Socialist Students agrees with the demands for divestment and financial disclosure. But I would like to pose two questions to you all: who decides who we divest from and who gets to control where our money goes? We have absolutely no trust in the rotten management here at Queen Mary which has continuously fought against our interests.

Queen Mary university anti war protest
Queen Mary’s anti-war protest.
Photo: QM Socialist Students

We need a political student voice alongside the trade unions on campus to call an open meeting pushing for bigger protests to maximise pressure on the university for our demands.

Elected trade union representatives alongside students should have democratic control over where our money goes. The struggle is stronger when we are united and we can fight on every front. The issues students face do not end at university involvement in the war – we are in a cost-of-living crisis and our needs are not being heard. Universities are lobbying the government for an increase in our tuition fees – we demand the scrapping of tuition fees and in its place, a free and fully funded education system.

We must build a mass, nationwide movement to get the wealth and power out of the bosses’ hands. Labour’s budget is set to land at the end of this month, which could spark mass anger and outrage up and down the country. Socialist Students will be organising a national movement as neither the uni bosses nor Starmer fight for our interests, let alone for a ceasefire in the Middle East. The trade unions must mobilise its over six-million-strong membership for a new mass workers’ party. It could take a lead in the anti-war movement and fight for an anti-austerity programme, taking control of our wealth from the bosses.

Alongside the strike wave here in the UK there have been strong and militant union actions across the world that show the strength of workers. In Belgium, the union of transport workers refused to load weapons to Israel. We fight for the self-determination of all people and an immediate ceasefire to end the cycle of violence and repression. We have a role to play here in Britain. Mass movements can ignite further action and pressure, such as the encampments in the US, which inspired UK students to do the same here.

It’s the ordinary people who must take initiatives. Capitalism fears the unity of the working class. In 2019, workers united in Lebanon and rose up in mass protest against government corruption, which sucked the country into a deeper cost-of-living crisis. In Iran in 2022, a revolutionary movement broke out after protests against the brutal regime’s treatment of women. In Israel 300,000 workers went on strike demanding a ceasefire and return of the hostages.

In 1987, Palestinians made gains under the first intifada mass movements demanding self-determination and an end to the depravity faced under Israeli occupation. The power and strength of the workers is evident and we can meet the needs of everyone and end bloodshed by fighting for socialist revolution which ends the interests of the exploiting elite, giving control to the working-class and poor people in the Middle East and worldwide. I’m a member of Socialist Students and because I believe in the need for a revolutionary organisation to fight for these ideas and win.❞