What party should students vote for?

Mary Finch, Leeds Socialist Students

The general election may be eight months away, but the three main parties have already embarked on a mission to remake their images and shore up support. Labour has pledged an Ł8 an hour minimum wage by 2020. The Liberal Democrats have turned their backs on plans to privatise the Student Loans Company. The Tories are vowing to continue attacks on immigrants, benefit claimants, disabled people and young people.

Whichever of these parties we vote for, it's clear that young people and students will still be paying sky-high rents for substandard accommodation. We'll still be paying at least Ł9,000 tuition fees every year. We'll still be ending up on zero-hour contracts, working for below the living wage.

None of the three main parties have taken any stand on these issues, and that's because they don't represent ordinary people - they stand for the super-rich and big business. These people make their profits on poverty pay, and on the mass privatisation of public services. None of these parties will defend the interests of ordinary students and young people. So when we're in the ballot box next year, which box will we tick?

We could vote Labour, to kick out the Tories, but we'll only see more of the same. We could vote Green. They've pledged a Ł10 an hour minimum wage, but, just like with Labour's insufficient promises, we'll have to wait until 2020 to get it. And when it comes to the crunch, the Green-led council in Brighton has passed cuts, just like all the other pro-austerity parties.

TUSC

We need a party that stands up unequivocally for workers and for students, against all the cuts, for the scrapping of tuition fees and student debt, for decent and affordable housing, for an end to zero-hour contract jobs, for Ł10 now and not in six years time.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) stood for all these things in the council elections in May and will be doing so again in the general and local elections 2015.

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