The start of 2026 has been marked by deepening global instability and an increasingly open disregard for international norms. Recent actions by the United States—including the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and claims over Venezuela’s oil reserves—represent a serious escalation in the erosion of state sovereignty. This sits alongside renewed statements from Donald Trump about “acquiring Greenland,” signalling a willingness to use economic and political pressure to override self-determination.

At the same time, U.S. policy towards Palestine continues to impose a so-called “peace” framework that excludes Palestinian voices while ignoring ongoing Israeli military action. Human rights abuses persist not only in Palestine but also in Iran, Sudan and elsewhere. These injustices are felt around the world and here - they generate fear, instability and displacement, with real consequences for communities across the world.

For us as educationalists and trade unionists, this matters. In inner-city colleges and universities, many staff and students have close family ties to regions affected by war and repression. These events shape our daily lives, our mental health and the learning environment. Staff and students look to their unions and institutions for solidarity and leadership, not silence.

The political situation in the UK offers little reassurance. Labour enters 2026 with low polling and a growing sense of drift. While Keir Starmer’s New Year message acknowledged economic and social pressures, it failed to offer concrete commitments capable of reversing falling living standards or rebuilding public services. At the same time, Reform UK continues to poll strongly while promoting attacks on migrants, multiculturalism, SEND provision and adult education.

These political failures are already being felt sharply across education. In higher education, 2025 saw an unprecedented financial crisis, with over half of UK universities forecasting deficits and dozens warning of course closures, compulsory redundancies or insolvency. The consequences are clear: jobs cut, pay eroded by inflation, workloads intensified, and job security undermined. In FE, we face a recruitment and retention crisis driven by low pay and excessive workload, while adult education continues to be hollowed out after years of cuts and marketisation.

These are not isolated problems, these are poltical choices - and therefore our industrial responses must be political. This crisis is the direct result of political choices; to fund wars not education, to create and tolerate failing models, and to shift risk onto staff through casualisation, restructuring and redundancy. With Starmer's government we are seeing an greater prioritising of military spending while education workers are told there is “no money” for fair pay or secure jobs.

For UCU, these issues must sit at the centre of our industrial strategy.

• Pay disputes are inseparable from a funding system that forces institutions to cut costs at staff expense.
• Workload crises are the predictable outcome of understaffing, redundancies and rising student numbers.
• Job insecurity is being normalised through repeated restructures and the erosion of permanent contracts.

We need to be clear, with all of our members - that none of this is inevitable. We can challenge this. At a time of growing repression, inequality and instability, UCU must continue to organise and resist—linking our industrial fights over pay, workload and job security to a broader vision of education based on solidarity, public investment and democratic control.

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