An indefinite strike at Goldsmiths – and the crisis nobody is talking about

An indefinite strike is about as serious as an industrial relations dispute can become. Yet staff at Goldsmiths, University of London, have been on indefinite strike since 8 June with remarkably little national attention.

That absence of scrutiny matters, because what is happening at Goldsmiths is not simply another dispute between university managers and a trade union. It is an extreme manifestation of a crisis spreading through British higher education.

Members of Goldsmiths UCU voted overwhelmingly for industrial action after the university announced another major programme of restructuring and redundancies. According to the union, management identified an £8 million shortfall in student recruitment income for 2025/26 and proposed £20 million in cuts, divided between academic and professional services.

This would be the third major round of cuts at Goldsmiths in five years.

Staff shock and anger was reflected in the results of a postal ballot where 81.2 per cent of participating union members backed strike action and 91.7 per cent backed action short of a strike.

Initially, staff continued teaching and supporting students while undertaking a marking and assessment boycott and refusing voluntary duties. The dispute escalated dramatically when Goldsmiths imposed 100 per cent pay deductions on staff participating in the boycott.

The union subsequently began indefinite strike action.

Goldsmiths UCU argues that repeated restructuring has failed to resolve the institution’s underlying problems. It says Freedom of Information requests show that more than £14 million was spent on consultants between 2019 and 2026, with at least another £6.6 million spent on recruitment services since 2022.

The real problem of course is that the wider financial problem extends far beyond one institution.

Universities across Britain are cutting courses, freezing recruitment and reducing staff numbers. Institutions which once benefited from Britain’s international reputation for higher education are struggling with a funding model that increasingly looks unsustainable.

At its heart is a political question that successive governments since 1998 have avoided: who should pay for higher education?

It was Tony Blair’s Labour government that changed direction and shifted an increasing proportion of the cost towards individual students, arguing that the expansion in higher education could not continue to be funded by the state.

A perfect storm was created when it was believed that international students would carry this burden, but draconian immigration policies by successive governments has cut the numbers of overseas students wanting to study in the UK significantly.

The reality is that tuition fees cannot simply continue rising to meet universities’ costs. Students already graduate carrying substantial debts, while universities argue that the real value of domestic tuition-fee income has been eroded by inflation.

This is not just about cost. In many countries, including Germany, higher education is viewed as a basic infrastructure responsibility, similar to roads or healthcare, rather than a private commodity. The long-term return on investment comes from higher tax revenues generated by an educated, higher-earning workforce.

Britain needs to reconsider that principle.

An educated population is not a luxury enjoyed by the individual graduate. Universities train doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists and researchers. They produce innovation and contribute to economic growth. Just as importantly, universities foster critical thinking, scholarship and informed public debate. These are all essential components of a functioning democracy.

Britain’s universities were once regarded as among the finest in the world. That reputation cannot simply be assumed to continue while departments close, experienced academics leave and institutions repeatedly restructure themselves in search of savings.

There are legitimate questions about university management, salaries, spending priorities and efficiency. More public funding cannot mean freedom from scrutiny. But neither can the answer to a systemic funding failure simply be another redundancy programme.

The  staff and students at Goldsmiths should not be left fighting this battle alone.

This is not merely a dispute about jobs at one London university. It is a warning of what happens when a country allows one of its most important public institutions to deteriorate without confronting the question of how it should be funded.

The question is no longer whether Britain can afford to fund its universities properly. It is whether it can afford not to.