AT the YCL’s 52nd congress, taking place on August 30-31 in London, young communists from across Britain will discuss the revolutionary task ahead of uniting young workers and students in the united front against monopoly capitalism and imperialism.

Percy Shelley’s “Rise like lions after slumber” captures our task for the coming period as the crisis of capitalism intensifies, and the urgent need for a strong, organised working class is ever-present.

Younger workers and students are turning away from the Labour Party, if they haven’t already, following its adoption of “military Keynesianism,” which starves the working class while funding war and genocide around the world.

Many young people only know life under the austerity of the last 15 years, driving the need for a viable alternative. It is in this context that the YCL must decide its strategy in winning over disillusioned youth to build the united front against austerity and war.

As Labour delivers on the ruling capitalist class’s interests, YCL branches are laying the ground work on the local, grass-roots level to challenge austerity and genocide, from involvement in the Better Buses Campaign in Derbyshire, opposing the privatisation of public transport, to the Time to Divest campaign in Edinburgh calling for the Lothian Pension Fund to divest from apartheid, occupation and genocide in Palestine.

These local campaigns are on the offensive against capitalism’s interests, on issues that the working class are affected by and in opposition to, forging links across the movement to build the united front, and drawing the youth into the class struggle in their workplaces and communities.

The key component of the united front is the trade union movement. On the industrial front, increasingly our members are becoming reps and leaders in their workplaces, recruiting, organising and educating other young workers to fight for fair pay, better terms and conditions, and for trade union recognition in their workplaces.

Notably, one of our members has been a leading member of industrial action in Enable Scotland, the first national care strike in over a decade, linking workplace industrial action with the anti-austerity movement. The super-exploitation of women and migrants in this sector, forcing many of them into poverty, makes recruitment and organisation there essential.

One of the central demands of the strike is collective sectoral bargaining, getting care staff around the table to negotiate their own pay and terms and conditions. This is essential to stamp out increasing austerity in the sector, as well as forcing the Scottish government to prioritise service users over profit margins.

The Women’s Charter recognises collective sectoral bargaining as necessary to achieving women’s liberation, and collective sectoral bargaining should be at the forefront of the united front’s demands. This strike demonstrates that the working class will not be passive in the face of poverty and austerity, but active and fighting against these conditions. Our member involved in this strike will be speaking at the Saturday evening industrial fringe at congress about the role of trade unions in building the united front.

In the wider union movement, our members are campaigning for international solidarity as a key priority because while we fight for fair pay and terms and conditions, we also target the military-industrial-academic complex that saps funding from public services to fund war and genocide.

We are ensuring that peace is on every major trade union’s agenda, understanding that Labour’s austerity policies are irrevocably tied to increased government spending on militarisation and rearmament, strengthening international solidarity across the trade union movement.

Educating young members on the Alternative Defence Review — the CND report challenging the narrative around the drive to war — will be a core part of our Industrial Commission’s work going forward to help raise the political consciousness of young members in unions. This is significant because the genocide in Gaza is politicising many young people for the first time, and their efforts need to be channelled appropriately so as not to lose momentum in the movement.

The Labour Party is now the party of militarisation and war, alienating the youth. Keir Starmer has increased the “defence” budget at the expense of the working class through cuts to services, slashed benefits, and stagnant wages, with monopoly capitalism reaping the rewards.

The government and some trade unions support this increase in military expenditure because it allegedly creates jobs. However, while successive governments have hiked military spending by a third since 2016, youth unemployment is at 14.1 per cent today, similar to figures in 2016. The Alternative Defence Review exposes this “defence” narrative as bogus.

Although militarisation has limited job creation, investment in public services, especially health, is more job-rich, benefitting the working class through employment, improved services and job training. It is critical to highlight to young workers and students that cuts to health, education and other public services are in fact, used by the ruling capitalist class to fund war and genocide around the world.

Consequently, our industrial work is evermore urgent not only to fight the cuts, but also to dispel the false narrative surrounding military spending in our trade unions. Promoting the Alternative Defence Review in the trade union movement will be a priority of the YCL Industrial Commission in the next two years, as part of the YCL’s broader work for peace, jobs and socialism.

The YCL unreservedly supports the peaceful resolution of conflicts between states instead of escalation and war, noting the destructive impact of war on the working class, humanity and the environment.

We reject Britain’s involvement in war and genocide and call for a demilitarised defence strategy that prioritises co-operation, partnership and diplomacy, releasing investment from militarisation into public services. This should not be at the expense of workers in defence manufacturing, whose highly specialised skills should be used for socially useful production.

Young communists will debate the best course of action to fulfil these aims, setting our organisational and political priorities for the next two years. A prime issue in our members’ minds will be Palestine, after Netanyahu expressed Israel’s desire to annexe Gaza with US backing.

Young communists not only call on Britain to recognise the independent State of Palestine, but to support UN and international action in the practical realisation of that. Organisationally, the YCL will seek to develop work on Palestine on an all-Britain level following the exemplary fundraising efforts that branches, especially Glasgow, have made in the last two years.

This YCL congress meets at a crucial period, where Starmer’s war drum beats louder while the working class suffers under austerity. The YCL must be ready and fighting to build the united front against austerity and war, playing a crucial role in recruiting, organising and educating young people in the class struggle.

Our priorities are where this struggle is most acute — in the trade unions and anti-imperialist movement — showing the working class youth that there is a viable alternative to monopoly capitalism and imperialism: socialism.