what have we done in 2025?

It’s been a year. This year we launched our new strategy - and our PAY UP campaign - taking aim at the super-rich and trying to make this government change paths and truly deliver the change they promised. But first, cast your mind back to January 2025, and Rachel Reeves (our so called first Green Chancellor) is backing airport expansion. We couldn’t just sit back. So we launched an emergency campaign: ‘there’s no growth on a dead planet’.  

Together, we sent over 1000 emails to 417 MPs, demanding they stand against this government’s backpedaling on climate. Eleven local youth-led groups sprang into action, meeting face-to-face with MPs across the country – from Sheffield to Bristol, Manchester to Portsmouth. We confronted cabinet members like Wes Streeting and Darren Jones directly. On the day of a major Climate Change Committee report, we dropped a banner in Parliament to spotlight the government’s climate betrayal. And to round it off, we took a delivery of real ways this government could deliver growth to the Treasury.

When our future was being attacked, we got out on the street and did something. They might not have cancelled airport expansion but they know they can't get away with it quietly. 

Fast forward to May this year, and we’re setting up a youth club outside London’s oldest private members club to launch our PAY UP campaign - because we will not accept a world where the super-rich add £35 million a day to their wealth whilst our youth clubs and libraries shut down.

With our villains centre stage, we launched a wave of action across the country, highlighting the extreme wealth hoarded by a few, and calling on this government to make them pay their fair share. We stood up against fossil fuel boss Jim Ratcliffe, making billions while our planet burns, the Duke of Westminster who inherited £10billion at 25 without paying a penny in tax, and Nicky Candy, luxury property developer and billionaire backer of Reform UK. And on the 4th July, one year after this Labour government came to power, we held a day of action, with 20 actions across the country calling on this government to make the super-rich PAY UP.

In the midst of all this, as our government decided to try and balance the books on the backs of disabled people, we teamed up with Mad Youth Organise to push back against the cruel welfare cuts. From challenging Darren Jones on his insulting ‘pocket money’ comparison, to holding Liz Kendall - the person driving these cuts - to account on the reality of her policies. 

And we won. The cuts didn't go through and it was a huge embarrassment for this government - thanks to people power and all the dedicated disability justice groups and their allies working so hard to make sure these cuts didn't happen. Campaigning works.

This summer, as we geared up to move our PAY UP focus from our villains to our politicians, we gathered together in the west midlands at our summer gathering for a weekend of community-building, action-training and joy. Featuring our now legendary talent show and an unexpected but amazing master class in rugby lifts!

Inspired by a weekend in nature, we got to work again. This time in national teams organising our biggest action to date: Reeves’ Reckoning. From action design and props, to logistics and training, and content and mobilising, we got nearly 100 of us outside Rachel Reeves' door with a clear message: it’s us or the billionaires. We shared our stories from Cardiff to Coventry, and heard from some of our GND Champions on the change we need to see and the need for voices like ours to lift up our generation.

Meanwhile we continued to hold our politicians to account - challenging 28 Labour MPs on wealth taxes, handing in over half a million signatures to a petition to tax the super rich with our friends at Tax Justice UK and getting 40 MPs to sign an open letter to the Chancellor demanding she addresses extreme inequality in the Autumn Budget.

And all the while, our local teams have been busier than ever. Here’s a few highlights:

• Our Brighton team organised a big Brewdog protest for our PAY UP day of action in July, and have embedded themselves in local movement structures like the Collective Action Hub
• Our Bristol team kicked off the year with a bang running their own campaign for public ownership of Wessex Water
• Our Cambridge team organised two Brewdog protests as part of our PAY UP series of actions against multi-millionaire owner James Watt
• Our Cardiff team canvassed in the crucial Caerphilly by-election for Plaid Cymru, who successfully beat Reform in a much-needed win
• Our Exeter team have smashed it this year with consistent solidarity activities and PAY UP postering
• Our East London team went from strength to strength this year, coming up with their own idea for 'Wake Up Rachel' sit outs outside the Treasury before the budget
• Our North London team organised an excellent action for our PAY UP day of action targeting petro-billionaire Jim Ratcliffe outside the INEOS HQ in London
• Our South East London team showcased their top campaigning instincts with their action targeting Henley & Partners, the architects of the 'capital flight' myth, during the height of our PAY UP campaign in the summer - tackling the arguments against taxing billionaires 'head on' 
• Our brand new South West London team have hit the ground running with their first meeting in November and already fundraising as a team doing some bag packing in supermarkets before Christmas
• Our Manchester team hosted a North West strategy day early in the year to plan their next steps, and partied hard at the Billie Eilish AND Lorde concerts while drumming up some new recruits in the crowd!
• In Scotland, our Edinburgh team organised an excellently creative bowling themed action for our PAY UP day of action in July, and have been getting together as a team for socials and marches throughout the year. Our Glasgow team have worked really hard this year to get the momentum going in their team, making loads of posters and banners, spooking JP Morgan with a PAY UP picket in the summer, and joining lots of marches and events together as a team
• Our West Midlands team have been super active all year, leafleting and building links with other groups, organising actions in Birmingham and Stoke, hosting our Summer Gathering weekend, and finishing off with a games night fundraiser social!

And through it all our GND Champions have stood up for our generation in Parliament and in the media. Whether it was Clive Lewis’s campaigning on public ownership of water, Carla Denyer's championing of the National Nature Service or Nadia Whittome's fightback against cruel welfare reforms. 

We might not have won everything we set out to this year, but we built our movement to be brighter and more powerful. We know this is a long fight, and we’ll keep at it. Because each win is a step towards the better future we all deserve - and we’ll keep going until we win it.

See you on the streets in 2026 👀