Comrades, friends, and youth struggling for peace, democracy and socialism around the world. We send you warm and revolutionary greetings as we cross into 2026.
As we embark upon a new year, we must reflect on our previous year and our current circumstances in order to continue building the class struggle amongst youth in Britain. We do so not in naive celebration but from a realistic assessment of our material conditions and prospects.
2025 has been defined by the deepening general crisis of capitalism on every front, including the intensification of war, austerity, oppression and repression. All these serve the interests of the ruling class, who destitute the working class, in their pursuit of monopoly profits. The YCL looks forward to another year of revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the ushering in of socialism.
Youth have inherited a world in which US and EU-NATO countries, including Britain, prolong the proxy war in Ukraine in the service of Western imperialism. The war in Ukraine has provided the main pretext for the Labour government to boost military spending, including loosening fiscal rules, which will harm the working class in Britain even further.
When the British government should use its permanent membership of the UN Security Council to promote a ceasefire and negotiations for a guaranteed settlement, it instead warmongers. Young communists reaffirm our commitment to peace in Ukraine and condemn NATO’s attempts to prolong the war and the heavy loss of life among conscripts on both sides. Most trade unions have supported the British government’s foreign policy on Ukraine, reflecting the movement’s lack of understanding of imperialism.
This year saw the historic win of “Wages Not Weapons” at TUC Congress, which reversed 2022 TUC policy to support the increase of military expenditure. Communists led on this in the broad peace movement with CND and RMT commissioning the Alternative Defence Review. This equips the labour movement with the arguments to stand against increased military expenditure. However, this is in contradiction with many unions’ policies on Ukraine, driving home the need for young communists to raise the class consciousness of our fellow young trade unionists because ultimately the labour movement is weak on the issue of imperialism.
The Israeli ‘Defence’ Force has killed over 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza and famine continues to ravish the territory. The UN World Food Programme is unable to deliver the humanitarian aid required due to Israeli forces blocking them and targeting civilians who attempt to use aid distribution centres, as well as massive cuts in funding from the US. The Israeli government acts with complete impunity as it violates international law, economically, politically and militarily supported by the US and Britain.
Britain now recognises the state of Palestine, but the fight doesn’t end there. Young communists call for the establishment of the Independent State of Palestine, based on the pre-1967 borders and with its capital in East Jerusalem, alongside the right to return for millions of displaced Palestinian refugees, supported by the UN and international actions to achieve this. Young communists will step up our work in the Palestinian solidarity movement in Britain, maintain our support for a two-state solution and support the global campaign for the release of Marwan Barghouti and the thousands of other political prisoners detained in Israel’s jails. We oppose the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation for taking non-violent direct action against the supply of arms to Israel. We support the Palestine Action hunger strikers demanding Elbit Systems to cease operating in Britain for good; for the ban on Palestine Action to be lifted; and their immediate bail and a fair trial. We will continue to show the utmost political and practical solidarity with left, progressive and anti-imperialist forces in Palestine struggling for their sovereignty.
In Britain, the living standards of the working class have plummeted as wages have fallen in real terms and public services are on a knife’s edge. 4.5 million children are living in poverty, that is nearly 1 in 3 children. Youth unemployment is at 15.3%, that’s 702,000 young people out of work, training or education, up 60,000 from last year. Most youth in work are in temporary, part-time and precarious employment. The richest 10% in Britain own more than half the wealth (57%), ten times more than the poorest half of the population. It is clear that we are not all in it together with regards to austerity.
Of the G7 countries, only the US is more unequal than Britain. Young workers and their unions continue to fight to defend and improve their pay and conditions but they are up against anti-trade union laws, inadequate legislation and state protection for capitalist monopolies. Young communists won’t back down in the face of this. Many are involved in leading strikes in their workplaces, particularly in hospitality and social care, which are particularly affected by precarity, low pay, and poor terms and conditions. Young communists in the social care sector are fighting for collective sectoral bargaining as part of their organising to build working class and trade union power against the bosses and government.
Britain’s ruling capitalist class has enforced brutal austerity on the working class to fund their militarism and drive to war. Labour’s adoption of military Keynesianism defines the Labour Party as the Party for arms dealers and imperialists. Britain’s so-called war-fighting budget has been increased to £61bn in 2025-2026 at the expense of the youth and working class. This is being paid for by slashing public services, which detrimentally impacts young and working people. Young communists reject Britain’s involvement in wars around the world, which impoverish the working class in Britain and kills, injures and ruins the lives of the working classes of the world, to serve the interests of British and Western monopoly capital and geo-political and military strategy of the US. War destabilises the countries in which it takes place at great cost to the youth and working class. Young communists will continue to promote CND’s Alternative Defence Review, which outlines a demilitarised defence strategy rooted in common prosperity, diplomacy, cooperation and development in relation to conflict resolution. Investments should be diverted away from militarism to socially useful sectors, such as healthcare, education, climate resilience and social care, which benefits the working class and the communities they live in.
Youth reject a future of endless conflict, precarious work and impoverishment. We reject the ruling capitalist class’s destitution of our living standards and public services in the name of monopoly profit. Young people want Britain to improve so we can build a better society for ourselves. The solution is to build the class struggle for socialism in Britain with mass youth involvement.
There is no time to despair or acquiesce. Young communists must continue to build the United Front with the trade union movement at its core, uniting youth with working-class campaigns and organisations whilst promoting young people’s issues. Such a strategic movement signals a stronger working-class movement and resistance to monopoly capitalism’s interests, fighting on the offensive rather than the defensive. The YCL must be a dynamic force within this front. Already, our members are leading campaigns for Better Buses in Derbyshire, No Cuts in Glasgow and Lanarkshire, Toothless in Yorkshire, and Birmingham for Bangladeshi Workers. These campaigns are connected in a meaningful way to build the United Front against monopoly capitalism and imperialism.
The League’s tasks for 2026 are clear:
Fight austerity by standing with students and staff resisting cuts in education; with young workers in precarious work on poor pay and terms and conditions, campaigning for a real living wage and security; and with those battling the housing crisis. We reject a system where 4.5 million children live in poverty whilst billions are spent on the war machine.
Be a dynamic force in the peace and anti-war movement, campaigning for Britain to leave NATO, and for the closure of all US military bases on our soil. We will challenge pro-war and militarism propaganda promoted in education and through mass media. This is important especially as the government enacts its Defence Industrial Strategy, which proposes to develop “defence technical excellence colleges” meanwhile further education hangs on by a thread. Young communists have already put peace and CND’s Alternative Defence Review on trade union conferences’ agendas and won. We will continue to push peace onto every trade unions’ priorities, as well as mainstream the Alternative Defence Review as a document that the labour movement can unite behind and promote a serious alternative economic and political strategy that centres peace and not war.
Confront the rise of Reform UK with its racist scapegoating enabled by record-breaking support from multimillionaires and the failure of establishment parties to address social and economic crises. We will unequivocally expose the class character of Reform UK’s leadership and its Thatcherite policies. We will offer a class-based, viable alternative without branding every supporter as racist or fascist. Our goal is to unite the working class against monopoly capitalism and imperialism.
Build the League and the Communist Party because we are the only political force with a consistent, revolutionary analysis and programme to achieve socialism in Britain. Young communists must study, organise and recruit young workers and students, promote Challenge and the Morning Star, as well as being leaders in our workplaces, campuses and communities.
Socialism or barbarism is the youth’s only choice today. Capitalism offers us barbarism through more war and cuts.
This New Year, we will continue to build working-class power on the picket lines, in student occupations, at peace and anti-austerity demonstrations and through community campaigns. We are fighting to build a United Front with a left-wing programme of public ownership, wealth taxes, nuclear disarmament, and trade union and workers’ rights that will vastly improve the lives of the working class in Britain and those affected by British imperialism.
Comrades, in 2026, let’s build the class struggle for the only future that guarantees peace, democracy, and human prosperity. A future of peace, jobs and socialism. Let’s organise, agitate and educate youth in Britain to build mass support for Britain’s Road to Socialism.
Join the YCL
Build the class struggle
For peace, jobs and socialism in our lifetime!
Georgina Andrews, General Secretary
Young Communist League
1 January 2026
London, Britain
