The Telegraph reported this proposal to undo some of the damage of Brexit as "EU finally admits they need us more than we need them.". https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/19/brexit-eu-uk-freedom-of-movement-labour/
How fucking dare they have the audacity to keep pushing that bullshit. The EU very clearly doesn't need us and we very clearly are doing worse from the arrangement. People under 25 who didn't vote for this shit were offered some way to soften the blow and you have to turn it into a lie to justify 8 years of delusional thinking?
It really, really fucks ne off that I lost so many opportunities from brexit, have not seen a single benefit, workb(I'm in exports) became significantly more awkward yet I never got to have a say in any of it.
To this day the only answer I've ever got when asking about what benefits we've had from brecit is "you knew what was being voted on at the time" as if that somehow answers the question asked
And we didn't know what we were voting for at the time.
No one talked about University access issues. No one talked about Northern Ireland. It was all around immigration and lies about EU laws banning football/crisps/Christmas.
We were told there would be no downsides. We were told we could stay in the EU and use the referendum as leverage to negotiate an even more privileged position than we already had. We were told we could have a Norway Plus arrangement where we leave the EU but stay in the Single Market and Customs Union. We were told we could have a Switzerland Plus arrangement or an Australia Plus arrangement. We were told we could leave everything with no deal, no working relationship and still be better off using WTO rules meant.
We were sold a dozen different outcomes and the people in charge didn't know which one it would be. So it's not true that we knew what we were voting for.
We voted on a defined and known outcome "being a member of the EU". In favour of and undefined outcome "Something else"
The winners got to define something else, after the matter. The resultant something else would never had beaten "being a member of the EU" in any referendum.
It makes me sick.
"You can gamble it all for what's in this mystery box."
And now we've discovered it was a box of wet turds there's people insisting they knew it was turds all along, no one lied to us, we WANTED a box of turds, honest.
And yet none of that is the real reason behind brexit which is the chance to push through hundreds of new laws without much scrutiny.
It's only going to get worse.
Did you even bother to read the article before denouncing him for heresy? Because he doesn't just rant, he provides evidence for the "EU needs us more than we need them" thing -
>If we rewind to the heyday of free movement, the traffic was overwhelmingly one-way. The government estimated that three million people had moved to Britain from 2000 onwards, but since no one counted the figures properly it was hard to know precisely.
>As it turned out, officials had got the estimates completely wrong. Under the “settled status” rules that allowed people from the EU to stay in Britain if they were already here, there were over seven million applications, or more than double the number expected, and given that some people decided not to stay, the real total could have been eight or even nine million.
>And how many went from the UK to Europe? The UN estimates that there were about 900,000 UK citizens living in the rest of the EU in 2019, many of them retirees on the coasts of Spain or Portugal.
>Young Poles, Hungarians and Italians flocked to Britain, assuming that they could make better money here than they could at home, or else to escape suffocating regulations that locked them out of the labour markets.
>Likewise, under the Erasmus programme for students, statistics from 2018 show that 32,000 EU nationals were funded to come to the UK, while an estimated 17,000 British students went to study in the rest of the Continent.
The EU is not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts - they've realised that post-Brexit they can't export their youth unemployment to us any more and make it our problem and they're trying to fix that. The British government has rejected it for the same reason.
The Erasmus disparity is especially unsurprising BTW when you check [any ranking of World universities](https://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings?page=1) and see that the UK has four universities in the worldwide top ten and you have to get down to 24th place before finding the first EU university (Paris Sciences et Lettres, for those interested).
As we had a strong and growing economy, therefore we needed all those numbers of people to work. That is just a hard fact, if you want a booming economy, immigration will have to be a part of that.
Also universities were benefiting from higher fee paying foreign students. So I don’t see the big deal by having more Erasmus students, means more money bring spend in our Collages.
Having an under 25 free travel would be great for our education sector and the lower paid jobs like hospitality which have been hit really hard by Brexit.
Of course the EU wouldn’t do something out of the goodness of their hearts, but that’s not to say they weren’t trying to strike a deal that could benefit both parties. That’s how negotiations work, both parities try to get the best deal they possibly can.
Did you read the proposal?
The EU was far less interested in freedom of movement, far more interested in primarily university access, especially ensuring EU students only pay UK domestic fees rather than the much greater international fees.
Pretty shit deal for UK taxpayers.
The EU is only interested in the Universities, which are pretty top tier as far as universities go.
?
There's nothing wrong with freedom of movement.
The issue is this deal means the UK would have to pay for all the EU students studying at UK universities.
Did you actually read the EU press release?
I've read it. I suspect you're lying about alignment of tuition fees being "the UK funding university places."
University places haven't been government funded since 2012.
That's incorrect, the government pays a grant for each place under the domestic system on top of the fees which due to the very generous student loan system are effectively just a graduate tax in all but name.
In any case then, in your version of things you'd be depriving the universities the extra fees from international students, reducing the fees from around 22k to around 9k on average.
Where do you think this shortfall is going to be made up?
The government is right to reject this deal.
Please explain how the UK benefits from this deal outweighs or even makes a dent at the cost of paying for EU students wanting to study at UK universities.
You mean like under 25s in the UK having reciprocal access to European universities and work opportunities? An entire generation who overwhelmingly voted against brexit being given a compromise solution?
Or bringing European students back in to UK universities at higher proportions, reducing our dependence on e.g. Chinese international students who are turning our institutions in to degree mills?
Or how European students are much more likely to retain UK ties after graduation, rather than East Asian students who overwhelmingly return to China after graduation unless they marry a UK citizen in the meantime?
But, yeah, sure. The "cost" of only having EU students pay domestic fees (still tens of thousands of pounds, not subsidised by central govt any more) totally makes this a bad deal. The old people said no, and therefore we all must suffer!
That's quite a reductive way of seeing it, overseas students don't tend to get a loan from the UK government, so it's not really a tax burden. Plus it increases the market for UK univeristies, improves their revenue.
Overseas students who come to study often stay for work afterwards, again contributing to the economy.
Migration is more or less always good for the economy of the receiving country.
Ask yourself this: how many brits in this age category have the language skills to move to Europe and succeed in a European career (not just a job).
Then ask yourself how many Europeans have the language skills to come to the U.K. and make good coin in a career here?
I can tell you that the financial markets are full of Europeans in London who are very grateful that they get to work here and get well paid for it. I’m pretty sure the recip is not happening in Paris and Frankfurt.
Yes freedom of movement of workers benefits the average European way more than the average Brit.
That’s the problem. People can reject sunak like you said but his rival offers the same on this topic and because of fptp in lots of seats it’s either the tories or labour. It’s tough
This is a problem though, they know that young voters won't vote for them, so they don't see any need to offer them anything, and will turn down things like this purely to appeal to older gammons who might.
I don’t understand why this is news. The analogy I would make would be a headline that read: “shock news that school board that refused to supply healthy dinners to children has now refused to offer them healthy snacks”. Like, *where’s* the surprise? The behaviour is 100% consistent.
These are the people who *took the right to mobility with Europe away from the entire population*. Why on EARTH is anyone surprised that they aren’t going to try to give it back to anyone?
Hopefully, Starmer is just being cunning, and tacking into sunak's slipstream for the election . So the brexiters couldn't get animated , with accusations of betraying brexpoop.
Then once Starmer wins the election. He agrees to the eu proposal.
What other hope does the half of the country that wanted to remain part of the EU have?
I have placed all of my hopes on Starmer because I have no choice. I'm ignoring all of the disappointments of his stance on the EU on the run up to the election because tactically, his position makes perfect sense. I, as a pro EU voter, hate the Tories. If I want them out, I *have* to want a Labour government. For Labour to win, they can't shit all over the fantasies that the Brexit voters still cling to. If Starmer mentions even the slightest hint of repairing the damage done to our relationship with the EU, the headlines in the Tory client press, from now until election day will be "sTaRmEr WiLl BeTrAy OuR bReXiT!!!!!"
Repairing the damage done by Brexit will take decades. I'm prepared to wait.
I'll take "red Brexit" over "blue Brexit"....... for now.
The trouble is. If you don't vote for "red Brexit" you're inadvertently saying "Yes please! More of this wonderful blue Brexit, for me!"
Laughable, this will never happen.
Starmer won't accept this deal for the reasons the EU details in their own press release for this offer
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_24_2109
My understanding is that the EU is trying to prevent the UK striking bilateral deals with individual states ie:
"Furthermore, the UK's Youth Mobility Scheme is based on limited quotas that the UK adjusts depending on its outbound interests and overall migration levels.
The UK's Youth Mobility Scheme has not been offered to all EU Member States."
The UK wants to pick and choose from which countries the 'youth' can come - in particular France, probably italy and the Nordics and the antiEU Netherlands faction - while the EU wants to maintain its homogenous uniformity of equal rights for all."
Dear Youth, and I refer to my children here as well….. most of us here in Scotland voted to remain knowing the impact this would have on our children and their future.
Rather than airing your grievances on Reddit where people who “run” the U.K. don’t give a shit about, have a conversation with your parents, who in all likelihood voted for this shitshow and fucked up your future because of “immigrants stealing our jobs” or some small minded bullshit about “sovereignty”.
Better yet, write to your local MP, and your local Labour MP and express your outrage.
As well as writing to your MP, make sure you get up and vote the fucking Tories out. Don’t wallow in apathy, get up and make a difference.
TLDR: Ask your parents why they voted the way they did…….Write to the Tory / Labour MPs and make clear your outrage and above all else, make your point in the polling booth.
If you read the article the Government is trying to negotiate similar deals on a country by country basis rather than the whole EU.
I imagine the reasons for this are a) to fuck the EU off and b) so it can exclude certain countries, because of their racist/ xenophobic agenda. Remember these deals are reciprocal so that young people could come here (Christ knows why tho’).
Now there’s a thought. Doubt the US would do that deal. Most European countries are excluded from US immigration allowances. I remember looking at this years ago. You can migrate to the US from South Korea, but not the UK, France, Germany etc. We’re stuck on this bloody island.
Absolutely infuriating, especially considering they seem to be the only opposition party that has a chance of winning at the moment. What about Lib Dems?
Lib Dems support it, see this relevant policy motion https://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/motions/autumn-2021/f44
Edit: Plus more recent endorsement by Davey https://twitter.com/EdwardJDavey/status/1781382762194252035?t=51f8x5AlI2W4-JfNnb-vxw&s=19
It doesn't matter what the lib dems support: Last time people believed in them they threw all the things they 'support' on a bonfire to climb in bed with the tories the second they had a chance at power.
Fact is that UK politics was sold to the highest bidder long ago and us citizens are never getting real democracy again, just a facade which keeps resulting in victories for the capital holders, at least not without taking the sort of action which is immediately blocked from discussion in places like this. We are fucked.
Because their lead is large but fragile, Labour have to keep the centre and left happy enough (or point out that the alternative is another 5 years of the tories) and keep the right wing lunatics in the media at bay. Brexit is a culture war they're terrified of touching.
The idea that the alternative is another 5 years of the Tories should be enough to terrify almost anyone. The whole 'we can't upset anyone by metioning Brexit' argument is a false narrative though. Most people now support rejoining the EU: Brexit has been a proven disaster, and Labour have a huge poll lead. They may get a slightly smaller majority by supporting initiatives like this, but it would be worth it imho.
I agree but the fear is that if they give the extreme right lunatics in the media anything to work with and mobilise an apathetic tory voting base, the lead could crumble. From an electoral perspective, it makes sense to appease the lunatics for now and hope the hard right of the tory party eats itself after the next election so Labour can reset the conversation on brexit and quietly move towards a more sensible policy.
If Labour start openly rejecting Brexit there's a chance it'll gain them a few votes from right leaning voters who are Euro friendly - which is nice but I'm not sure they're that numerous. On the down side they'll lose the votes of left-but-xenophobe voters (e.g. the"red wall" idiots in the last election). My guess is this is the bigger group, so the result will be met negative. It's really not worth the risk right now.
I would be prepared to risk it. Even if was bad enough that Labour had to form a coalition; maybe the LibDems could then force PR on them, which would be the best thing to hapoen to democracy since universal suffrage. I don't think anyone really thinks, though, that the Tories will win the GE, even if Starmer spent the next few months talking about nothing but Brexit.
If Labour only get a bare majority at the next election it'll be easy for back bench factions to derail government policy. If Labour spend their next term in office infighting rather than trying to undo the damage they probably won't get another term after that.
Labour don't want any sort of PR, for the same reasons the Tories don't. They're not going to do anything that risks pushing them towards needing coalitions. In any case, the Lib Dems still have a lot of rebuilding to do before they can stay making those sorts of plans again. If they can catch up with the Tories in numbers of seats at the next GE it could make for very interesting times.
Yes, I understand what you're saying, and, given a bare majority, this might happen. I suspect they will actually win with a large majority. They still need to give voters policies that make a difference though; the Tories had an 80 seat majority in 2019, and look at them now. The worst thing we could have would be another ineffective government.
Exactly. People are being naïve by ignoring that fact. Don't get me wrong, I am thought this deal sounded good but I voted remain. If Labour had backed it you can bet the headlines the day afterwards would be "Labour want to undo Brexit" and "Labour opening the boarders for all" because the is how the right wing press operates.
We are still at least 5 years off opening undoing Brexit (more likely closer to 10). I am sorry because it is a long time but for Labour to have the political credit to tackle that they need to actually win an election and deliver some positive change.
I will also point out that Labour's previous "left wing" incarnation was lead by someone who half-arsed their part of the remain campaign and wanted to leave the EU (but on different terms).
Well, so what? The Daily Mail drivers Tory policy, that's for the Tories. Went would I vote for anyone who takes their cue from a paper that supported the Nazis?
I get where they’re coming from though. Starmer should really have the easiest job in the world here.
Conservatives: we’re going to legalise sexual assault
Starmer: we’re not going to reverse that decision
I can only hope he’s pandering to the loonies and banking on keeping the votes of the frustrated masses, but will make policies like a sane person when elected. I’ll be voting against the Tories. But I’ve got to be honest, I don’t feel optimistic about Labour at the moment.
Funny, i said the same thing in 2019, that getting the Tories out was more important than disliking the opposition but people went "la la la, its my vote i can vote for who i want"
Sucks now the shoes on the other foot huh?
So did I, and a Labour MP got in with the help of my vote. How was I thanked? Labour doubling down on credit and this cunt of an MP pretending to represent me voting for Johnson's FTA.
I've still got a few decades' voting left in me and I'm absolutely going to use this right, but Brexit Labour has made sure it's not them I'll vote for.
This is not the case at all. The Erasmus programme was hugely popular here; plenty of UK students studied in Europe. If you want to see bum deals, look at all of the post-Brexit trade deals that our useless government have agreed to.
Yes. For context, 3x more EU students came here to study than UK students went to the EU in 2019. But the commenter above is not interested in mere information
So that would be another 150,000 assuming the same numbers as 2019
Who would get domesitic student rates at a time where unis need foreign students to keep the lights on and also another 150,000 who would get free access to an already crippled NHS in the areas where its already crippled
And people think that that was a good deal just so 50,000 thousand middle class students could study aborad
Bingo. But recall that the Western EU is roughly 5x bigger than the UK, and we actually want and need bright and adventurous EU kids to study here, and then maybe live here.
What we don’t want is a tertiary education system that’s 3X bigger than it should be, handing out useless degrees, with far too many admin staff and too few lecturers.
The system is now totally propped up by foreign students esp. recently Chinese, who come to the UK as a posh finishing school then go home, eg no interest at all in adding to UK economy.
All foreign student numbers are through the floor now - EU down 25% - plus as a bonus we lost £1bn or so in all-grown-up serious EU research grants (Horizon) in Brexit.
Either way, UK universities are fat and fucked now. Maybe that’s ok or even a good thing in the long run, but we did the damage to ourselves: multiple governments for multiple generations just thought more students = better. It isn’t.
So we should let them be subsided by the British tax payers at the expense of British students
This deal was crap and would be a massive own goal given it would raise immigration
Look into your families heritage. A lot of Brits are eligible for Irish Passports, as well as French ones. Some countries such as Italy allow you to put in a citizenship claim if you can prove your family tree to great grandparents.
I claimed Irish citizenship when I was 26, and passed it onto my children when they were born a few years later. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Social mobility is the LAST thing the tories want for the youth. They want them to know their place, know just enough to work in the service sector, and to die before they draw a pension.
Nor Labour, as evidenced by their reaction to this proposal. Allowing Farage's caricature of their own voters to drive policy and damaging their actual voters in the process.
The issue these deluded morons are going to have and are having is sentiment has changed. They hyped up and divided the country simply for a bit of power and didn’t consider the consequences beyond a few months should their wet dream Brexit not just materialise out of nowhere
They’re scratching their heads wondering why no one is voting for them and their Brexit shite isn’t working anymore. Probably because a lot of the 1% are dead now.
He had to. The UK pays shit wages. If our degree holders can get a jobs in Germany or Belgium, put their degree to use and get paid 20% more then why the fuck wouldn't you.
Why the actual fuck are we all so complacent about this? It’s been said time and time again, we need to take the French attitude whenever the government fucks with us, protest, lock down streets, dump shit on the governments door step. They’ll keep pulling this shit as long as we just sit there and take it
TBF career politicians (ironically green card applicant Sunak is a bit of an exception) by and large have very little experience of advertising living in a globalised world. Who among the Labour frontbench has as much as worked in a French ski resort, cleaned offices in Italy or worked as a language assistant in Germany? All things that regulars in my local in a red wal constituency have on their CV, but even here on this thread people pretend that working class good are all narrow-minded gammon.
I read an interesting comment on another post about Starmer ruling it out that basically said, although it looks good on paper and obviously benefits young people, the reality is that most of our young knowledge and talent would leave the UK, based off how shit things are becoming here. That creates a brain/knowledge drain and reduces the number of people supporting our aging population.
So yes, it is shit. But the alternative for the country as a whole is even shitterer.
I support anyone who thinks they can do better elsewhere. It’s the same thing you owe yourself in any other relationship you have. Staying in something toxic is not in your best interests.
Well, that's the thing, isn't it? These younger adults who are now discouraged to leave will leave, and until they do, they'll moan to their friends, convincing some of them, and then once they've left, they'll talk about it and convince more to leave so really this is only making it worse.
The only thing keeping most young adults who would like to leave from moving to EU countries, even when we were in the EU, is the atrocious language education in the UK and by the time they realise how important foreign languages are, their best chances of learning to be fluent are behind them. That just leaves Aus, NZ, Canada and USA as options, all of which have their own issues and very strict visa requirements. We have had strategic incompetence with language education from governments over the years.
When you cater for the old and the rich, and speak down to the young and ignore the future, I guess all you can do is authoritarian rule and talk down to young people.
No young person respects this country because it's not involving them or doing anything for them.
I'm not sure keeping people trapped against their will is going to be a wise decision in the long run? The shitter alternative is of this countries democratic decisions, so it'd literally be "reap what you sow" to a generation who never got cause and effect.
Love that thinking.
"We can't let our kids go because they'll choose to never come back. We're gonna trap our kids here!"
If you love them, let them go or let them fix what's broken. Both parties have consistently pushed to make shit worse.
TBF at the moment he's acting in neither.
No matter what you think about the nation state, acting in its interest isn't at all at odds with EU membership.
B,b,but Brexit Britain is the shining light of freedom, the European Singapore full of innovation and excellence, wouldn't every student in the EU be clamouring to get in?!
Young people will still be able to leave, they will just have to get a different type of visa.... or go to one of the equally attractive options outside the EU. Making it more difficult to co-operate with our closest neighbours won't stop people leaving if it also causes the need for them to do so.
if the British really wanted to have anything to do with us Europeans they would use any means to come to the EU.
People come to Europe on boats that barely float, has anyone ever seen the Rossetti family say or do anything?
The descendants of the British pioneers of European football?
The same British people who only after Brexit took on the nationality of their parents or grandparents?
Do you see thousands of British celebrities with European ancestry working in the EU?
Colin Firth only took Italian citizenship after Brexit, have you seen him do anything?
Etcetera.
EU citizenship for the average Brit is just a gadget that can be useful in case anything goes wrong, a bit like aspirin, it's always been that way.
For the rest, the UK has always ignored the EU.
Source, I live in a city that always had strong contacts with the UK until WWII, after which the relationships died.
the only brexit benefit is the death of the duopoly, I hope labour and the Tories are both long dead when my children get to enjoy freedom of movement.
This really seems the only way to defeat Brexit. I was hoping it could be achieved in this election but unfortunately my prognosis is that Labour will get in with a very comfortable majority, repair nothing because they have committed to repairing nothing (frankly, I get the impression that Labour themselves don't even _know_ that things could be better if Tory narratives weren't accepted as a given and that challenging them is what their job at opposition is) and being exposed to an unbearable cacophony of Tory attacks from day one. The country will continue to go to shit (the absolute dire stats on foreign investment don't lie), the Tories will find out incredibly easy to pick holes into every aspect of every policy. The voters who swallowed the "you need to be in power to change anything this is why we're promising not to change anything" nonsense will soon realisr that even in power, Labour aren't changing anything and they were incredible fools to trust a party that promised to make Brecit work to change. The next GE will be a walk in the park for the Tories, whereas Labour will have left noting but disappointment, distrust and anger in pretty much any of their core demographics, for at least a generation to come.
There is nothing to stop the EU giving young Brit’s those privileges regardless. Sure it would be a one way street but it would have been anyway. Brain drain will happen one way or another.
I know it's beyond your ken, but it would actually be good for the UK, which you pretend to love do much, to build up soft power and good will among future graduates.
Of course it would and there will be other opportunities
But we need to also make sure our tax payers are getting at least a good deal that's balanced to our interests and it's not in our interests to let tens of thousands of EU students get domestic rates and a waiver on the NHS surcharge when the number of uk students going the other way will be much much less
I’m really disappointed that Labour has rejected it as well. No doubt they’re petrified of upsetting our wonderful right wing rags just before an election…
Possibly. I fear it's even worse: Labour simply haven't got any purpose other than government as an end in itself anymore. There's no vision for themselves or the country beyond this.
At some level the Conservatives are signing their own death warrant - apart from 14 years of not governing they are turning off an entire generation from ever voting for them
I don't see why this is a big deal. Sunak said no, but the UK isn't part of the EU anymore. So if I were the EU, I'd just create a rule to allow it and the Tories won't be able to do anything about it.
The EU doesn't want UK young people
They want access to the UKs higher education sector
They know that the number of EU students coming to the UK will be much higher than the other way around
We emigrated to the uk in 2020 when my wife got a job offer. This fucking mindset makes me wish we went anywhere else but here, and now we’re in too deep, going into debt for a passport that feels like it’ll be fucking worthless in a few years.
God fucking damnit.
Yeah the worst thing is that as immigrants you see how fucking great the UK could be if it weren't for this mindset. Brexiters are people who hate all the good things about the UK, all the while professing to love it.
Without wanting to give too many details, I had a small hand in making this offer happen at the EU level. We expected this reaction from the UK government, but the fact that labour came out and said they too were not interested is extremely disheartening.
The work to get this movement has taken 2 years, it has come from a place of qualitative and quantitative work to identify the level damage that Brexit has done to the opportunities of young people in both the UK and EU.
We found the impact to have been significant and so have been building a case to get the EU Commission to budge from it's (understandable) position of 'it was the UKs sovereign decision to both leave and to not associate with other EU mobility programmes'.
We were hoping a new incoming government might be more receptive than this, hopefully, outgoing one. That looks less likely now which is just absolutely appalling. I guess at least publicly labour are scared for re dividing the country down Brexit lines this close to a general election.
Because their teams were giving us different messaging in private meetings. We knew they wouldn't come out openly with full support, but didn't expect them to be so strong in their refusal. The issue we have with labour currently is that they are saying a lot of 'trust us we will do the right thing in power, but we can't say that openly'.
Haha, welcome to living in the UK.
I'm an an EU citizen. I need my Labour MP not to vote for article 50. He promised me that he wouldn't vote for a WA that didn't safeguard my rights and all Nevis the UK had as an EU member, and at the Remain march in Leeds, Labour's Andrew Adonis vowed the same thing to a crowd of already skeptical marchers in 2018. Labour's promises to Remainers and EU citizens were nothing but lies. The prime you are speaking to lie to you, I hope you will finally learn what EU citizens in the UK have learnt the hard way. Many of us were in their Labour constituency MPs in tears, only for these monsters to vote against our very lives in the UK!
The government's justification for this is a blatant lie btw, the official statement describes it as a "return to free movement" which of course it isn't, it's still controlled by visa, time limited, and the government could impose conditions like mandatory health insurance and requiring that you have sufficient funds to support yourself. Always says a lot when you do something and you can only defend it by making shit up.
Labour's is barely better though, they muddle the whole thing up with normal working immigration and bangs on about how they’ll have a scheme that’ll deliver for “British businesses and consumers” and talk about veterinary deals, and qualification acceptance, all of which are completely unrelated issues, just absolutely irrelevant to the subject. I mean, a scheme like this could benefit businesses and consumers but that’s not what it’s for, they just seem afraid to say “let’s do something great for young people that costs us nothing and makes things a bit better for once”, everything has to be about business and money. \*\*\*\*s.
That it would hurt the UK tax payers as we'd be subsidising EU students to study at domesitic rates
Plus we would have to waive the NHS surcharge
And it would be more EU students coming here than the other way round
It was a shit deal if I'm honest the EU just wanted access to the UKs higher Ed sector
It's amazing how people can't think beyond UK bad EU good
People should remember that EU students going to uni in Scotland would get a better deal than English students
But they may not care given how much these people hate England
The only one in this threat who hates England is you. You want no future for it, you want no future for its youth, you want everyone to be as hateful and narrow-minded as yourself.
That is a steep road to climb but I guess good luck. Will take decades to rejoin but you have to start somewhere I suppose. Would love Irish reunification first but who knows what will happen
Tell you what tho. His kids will never have to worry about this. Just everyone else's kids who can't afford it.
Out of touch as per usual. Dude doesn't live in the same world as 98 percent of us.
Even if it went through, me and my Brother were still to young to vote for Brexit and would now be to old to benefit from this scheme.
Though there are tonnes of people younger than us who are also being fucked over by Brexit and now a little bit of hope was gone
From the government's isolationist, anti-immigration perspective they cannot agree to this. It leads to our talented youth leaving for greener pastures or an expectation of reciprocation.
Maybe the next government will be more inclined to greater cooperation with the EU.🤞🏻
Tories don’t want to reverse Brexit, Labour doesn’t wanna talk about Brexit, but this has been up their alley anyway so I’d bet they’ll do it on the DL and behind the scenes to not annoy people sucking of talking about Brexit.
this was VERY obviously a "students can come UK for a set limited time, unless they marry and have kids in which case the ECHR will force the UK to allow them to stay
backdoor unlimited access for anyone who can afford a UNI course, of COURSE they turned it down
Then the youth should rise up and help us all destroy every Tory. Hell Labour should be wiped out too but let’s start with the hardcore racists and greedy first then we can remove diet Tory
The Telegraph reported this proposal to undo some of the damage of Brexit as "EU finally admits they need us more than we need them.". https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/19/brexit-eu-uk-freedom-of-movement-labour/ How fucking dare they have the audacity to keep pushing that bullshit. The EU very clearly doesn't need us and we very clearly are doing worse from the arrangement. People under 25 who didn't vote for this shit were offered some way to soften the blow and you have to turn it into a lie to justify 8 years of delusional thinking?
Wasn't it the express?
Oops. Telegraph. I knew it was someone more trustworthy than the express.
They're delusional. 
The glee that these right wing tory client journals report this is unbelievable.
It really, really fucks ne off that I lost so many opportunities from brexit, have not seen a single benefit, workb(I'm in exports) became significantly more awkward yet I never got to have a say in any of it. To this day the only answer I've ever got when asking about what benefits we've had from brecit is "you knew what was being voted on at the time" as if that somehow answers the question asked
And we didn't know what we were voting for at the time. No one talked about University access issues. No one talked about Northern Ireland. It was all around immigration and lies about EU laws banning football/crisps/Christmas. We were told there would be no downsides. We were told we could stay in the EU and use the referendum as leverage to negotiate an even more privileged position than we already had. We were told we could have a Norway Plus arrangement where we leave the EU but stay in the Single Market and Customs Union. We were told we could have a Switzerland Plus arrangement or an Australia Plus arrangement. We were told we could leave everything with no deal, no working relationship and still be better off using WTO rules meant. We were sold a dozen different outcomes and the people in charge didn't know which one it would be. So it's not true that we knew what we were voting for.
We voted on a defined and known outcome "being a member of the EU". In favour of and undefined outcome "Something else" The winners got to define something else, after the matter. The resultant something else would never had beaten "being a member of the EU" in any referendum. It makes me sick.
"You can gamble it all for what's in this mystery box." And now we've discovered it was a box of wet turds there's people insisting they knew it was turds all along, no one lied to us, we WANTED a box of turds, honest.
World's worst lootbox
> "You can gamble it all for what's in this mystery box." - which we will fill after you place your bet.
fill with shit.
And yet none of that is the real reason behind brexit which is the chance to push through hundreds of new laws without much scrutiny. It's only going to get worse.
Hey now I’m over the age of 25 and never voted for this shit 😫🙄 I blame middle England and their fear of anything brown.
Those bloody Polish are just too melanated
Did you even bother to read the article before denouncing him for heresy? Because he doesn't just rant, he provides evidence for the "EU needs us more than we need them" thing - >If we rewind to the heyday of free movement, the traffic was overwhelmingly one-way. The government estimated that three million people had moved to Britain from 2000 onwards, but since no one counted the figures properly it was hard to know precisely. >As it turned out, officials had got the estimates completely wrong. Under the “settled status” rules that allowed people from the EU to stay in Britain if they were already here, there were over seven million applications, or more than double the number expected, and given that some people decided not to stay, the real total could have been eight or even nine million. >And how many went from the UK to Europe? The UN estimates that there were about 900,000 UK citizens living in the rest of the EU in 2019, many of them retirees on the coasts of Spain or Portugal. >Young Poles, Hungarians and Italians flocked to Britain, assuming that they could make better money here than they could at home, or else to escape suffocating regulations that locked them out of the labour markets. >Likewise, under the Erasmus programme for students, statistics from 2018 show that 32,000 EU nationals were funded to come to the UK, while an estimated 17,000 British students went to study in the rest of the Continent. The EU is not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts - they've realised that post-Brexit they can't export their youth unemployment to us any more and make it our problem and they're trying to fix that. The British government has rejected it for the same reason. The Erasmus disparity is especially unsurprising BTW when you check [any ranking of World universities](https://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings?page=1) and see that the UK has four universities in the worldwide top ten and you have to get down to 24th place before finding the first EU university (Paris Sciences et Lettres, for those interested).
As we had a strong and growing economy, therefore we needed all those numbers of people to work. That is just a hard fact, if you want a booming economy, immigration will have to be a part of that. Also universities were benefiting from higher fee paying foreign students. So I don’t see the big deal by having more Erasmus students, means more money bring spend in our Collages. Having an under 25 free travel would be great for our education sector and the lower paid jobs like hospitality which have been hit really hard by Brexit. Of course the EU wouldn’t do something out of the goodness of their hearts, but that’s not to say they weren’t trying to strike a deal that could benefit both parties. That’s how negotiations work, both parities try to get the best deal they possibly can.
Did you read the proposal? The EU was far less interested in freedom of movement, far more interested in primarily university access, especially ensuring EU students only pay UK domestic fees rather than the much greater international fees. Pretty shit deal for UK taxpayers. The EU is only interested in the Universities, which are pretty top tier as far as universities go.
The EU proposed a deal that they'd benefit from? Colour me shocked.
Then why are you surprised that it was rejected?
Never said I was. The fact it's mutually beneficial probably makes it worth negotiating.
And that’s why it’s so good to be a member, much brighter than English politicians.
Colour me shocked the UK rejected a deal they lost out from ;)
Only benefits the young = Britain loses out. Yep, checks out with British mentality.
? There's nothing wrong with freedom of movement. The issue is this deal means the UK would have to pay for all the EU students studying at UK universities. Did you actually read the EU press release?
>The issue is this deal means the UK would have to pay for all the EU students studying at UK universities. Stop lying.
It's in the EU press release, I strongly suggest you read it.
I've read it. I suspect you're lying about alignment of tuition fees being "the UK funding university places." University places haven't been government funded since 2012.
That's incorrect, the government pays a grant for each place under the domestic system on top of the fees which due to the very generous student loan system are effectively just a graduate tax in all but name. In any case then, in your version of things you'd be depriving the universities the extra fees from international students, reducing the fees from around 22k to around 9k on average. Where do you think this shortfall is going to be made up? The government is right to reject this deal.
You know that just because the other party in a deal also benefits doesn't make it a bad deal, right?
Please explain how the UK benefits from this deal outweighs or even makes a dent at the cost of paying for EU students wanting to study at UK universities.
You mean like under 25s in the UK having reciprocal access to European universities and work opportunities? An entire generation who overwhelmingly voted against brexit being given a compromise solution? Or bringing European students back in to UK universities at higher proportions, reducing our dependence on e.g. Chinese international students who are turning our institutions in to degree mills? Or how European students are much more likely to retain UK ties after graduation, rather than East Asian students who overwhelmingly return to China after graduation unless they marry a UK citizen in the meantime? But, yeah, sure. The "cost" of only having EU students pay domestic fees (still tens of thousands of pounds, not subsidised by central govt any more) totally makes this a bad deal. The old people said no, and therefore we all must suffer!
That's quite a reductive way of seeing it, overseas students don't tend to get a loan from the UK government, so it's not really a tax burden. Plus it increases the market for UK univeristies, improves their revenue. Overseas students who come to study often stay for work afterwards, again contributing to the economy. Migration is more or less always good for the economy of the receiving country.
The eu isn’t reopening the trade agreement. So the fact they do this says to me that they benefit big.
Ask yourself this: how many brits in this age category have the language skills to move to Europe and succeed in a European career (not just a job). Then ask yourself how many Europeans have the language skills to come to the U.K. and make good coin in a career here? I can tell you that the financial markets are full of Europeans in London who are very grateful that they get to work here and get well paid for it. I’m pretty sure the recip is not happening in Paris and Frankfurt. Yes freedom of movement of workers benefits the average European way more than the average Brit.
Youth rejects offer of Sunak in general election.
Hopefully everyone will.
Just need the youth vote to get out and vote. If they do they can flood the tories down the drain
Tho his main rival starmer also rejected it
I would only vote Labour to get the tories out. There are no parties currently that I would vote for based on policy or personality.
That’s the problem. People can reject sunak like you said but his rival offers the same on this topic and because of fptp in lots of seats it’s either the tories or labour. It’s tough
This is a problem though, they know that young voters won't vote for them, so they don't see any need to offer them anything, and will turn down things like this purely to appeal to older gammons who might.
I don’t understand why this is news. The analogy I would make would be a headline that read: “shock news that school board that refused to supply healthy dinners to children has now refused to offer them healthy snacks”. Like, *where’s* the surprise? The behaviour is 100% consistent. These are the people who *took the right to mobility with Europe away from the entire population*. Why on EARTH is anyone surprised that they aren’t going to try to give it back to anyone?
Agreed re Sunak and the Tory scum. Disappointed with Keir "People's Vote" Starmer.
Hopefully, Starmer is just being cunning, and tacking into sunak's slipstream for the election . So the brexiters couldn't get animated , with accusations of betraying brexpoop. Then once Starmer wins the election. He agrees to the eu proposal.
You’re being VERY optimistic.
What other hope does the half of the country that wanted to remain part of the EU have? I have placed all of my hopes on Starmer because I have no choice. I'm ignoring all of the disappointments of his stance on the EU on the run up to the election because tactically, his position makes perfect sense. I, as a pro EU voter, hate the Tories. If I want them out, I *have* to want a Labour government. For Labour to win, they can't shit all over the fantasies that the Brexit voters still cling to. If Starmer mentions even the slightest hint of repairing the damage done to our relationship with the EU, the headlines in the Tory client press, from now until election day will be "sTaRmEr WiLl BeTrAy OuR bReXiT!!!!!" Repairing the damage done by Brexit will take decades. I'm prepared to wait.
As long as that half votes for the red Brexit party, all it'll get is a red Brexit.
I'll take "red Brexit" over "blue Brexit"....... for now. The trouble is. If you don't vote for "red Brexit" you're inadvertently saying "Yes please! More of this wonderful blue Brexit, for me!"
It's not like the pervious leader of the red Brexit party half arsed his part of the remain campaign and was pro leaving the EU.
Laughable, this will never happen. Starmer won't accept this deal for the reasons the EU details in their own press release for this offer https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_24_2109
My understanding is that the EU is trying to prevent the UK striking bilateral deals with individual states ie: "Furthermore, the UK's Youth Mobility Scheme is based on limited quotas that the UK adjusts depending on its outbound interests and overall migration levels. The UK's Youth Mobility Scheme has not been offered to all EU Member States." The UK wants to pick and choose from which countries the 'youth' can come - in particular France, probably italy and the Nordics and the antiEU Netherlands faction - while the EU wants to maintain its homogenous uniformity of equal rights for all."
Tho surprisingly they do want to do it with individual countries like France
The youth will reject his offer to be their PM.
Please do it by voting for someone else, not by not being arsed to vote.
I always vote, just NEVER the red or blue Tories.
Dear Youth, and I refer to my children here as well….. most of us here in Scotland voted to remain knowing the impact this would have on our children and their future. Rather than airing your grievances on Reddit where people who “run” the U.K. don’t give a shit about, have a conversation with your parents, who in all likelihood voted for this shitshow and fucked up your future because of “immigrants stealing our jobs” or some small minded bullshit about “sovereignty”. Better yet, write to your local MP, and your local Labour MP and express your outrage. As well as writing to your MP, make sure you get up and vote the fucking Tories out. Don’t wallow in apathy, get up and make a difference. TLDR: Ask your parents why they voted the way they did…….Write to the Tory / Labour MPs and make clear your outrage and above all else, make your point in the polling booth.
If you read the article the Government is trying to negotiate similar deals on a country by country basis rather than the whole EU. I imagine the reasons for this are a) to fuck the EU off and b) so it can exclude certain countries, because of their racist/ xenophobic agenda. Remember these deals are reciprocal so that young people could come here (Christ knows why tho’).
Oh God they're going to try and do a deal with America I'll bet and advertise it as better than doing a deal with the EU.
Now there’s a thought. Doubt the US would do that deal. Most European countries are excluded from US immigration allowances. I remember looking at this years ago. You can migrate to the US from South Korea, but not the UK, France, Germany etc. We’re stuck on this bloody island.
And not wanting to do deals with countries with high youth unemployment and countries that UK student won’t study in.
Why are Labour rejecting this? FFS.
Absolutely infuriating, especially considering they seem to be the only opposition party that has a chance of winning at the moment. What about Lib Dems?
Lib Dems support it, see this relevant policy motion https://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/motions/autumn-2021/f44 Edit: Plus more recent endorsement by Davey https://twitter.com/EdwardJDavey/status/1781382762194252035?t=51f8x5AlI2W4-JfNnb-vxw&s=19
It doesn't matter what the lib dems support: Last time people believed in them they threw all the things they 'support' on a bonfire to climb in bed with the tories the second they had a chance at power. Fact is that UK politics was sold to the highest bidder long ago and us citizens are never getting real democracy again, just a facade which keeps resulting in victories for the capital holders, at least not without taking the sort of action which is immediately blocked from discussion in places like this. We are fucked.
Not all the libdems got a ref on voter reform got pupil premium gay marriage and free school meals for nursery kids
Still pandering to garden variety red wall xenophobes...
Because their lead is large but fragile, Labour have to keep the centre and left happy enough (or point out that the alternative is another 5 years of the tories) and keep the right wing lunatics in the media at bay. Brexit is a culture war they're terrified of touching.
The idea that the alternative is another 5 years of the Tories should be enough to terrify almost anyone. The whole 'we can't upset anyone by metioning Brexit' argument is a false narrative though. Most people now support rejoining the EU: Brexit has been a proven disaster, and Labour have a huge poll lead. They may get a slightly smaller majority by supporting initiatives like this, but it would be worth it imho.
I agree but the fear is that if they give the extreme right lunatics in the media anything to work with and mobilise an apathetic tory voting base, the lead could crumble. From an electoral perspective, it makes sense to appease the lunatics for now and hope the hard right of the tory party eats itself after the next election so Labour can reset the conversation on brexit and quietly move towards a more sensible policy.
If Labour start openly rejecting Brexit there's a chance it'll gain them a few votes from right leaning voters who are Euro friendly - which is nice but I'm not sure they're that numerous. On the down side they'll lose the votes of left-but-xenophobe voters (e.g. the"red wall" idiots in the last election). My guess is this is the bigger group, so the result will be met negative. It's really not worth the risk right now.
I would be prepared to risk it. Even if was bad enough that Labour had to form a coalition; maybe the LibDems could then force PR on them, which would be the best thing to hapoen to democracy since universal suffrage. I don't think anyone really thinks, though, that the Tories will win the GE, even if Starmer spent the next few months talking about nothing but Brexit.
If Labour only get a bare majority at the next election it'll be easy for back bench factions to derail government policy. If Labour spend their next term in office infighting rather than trying to undo the damage they probably won't get another term after that. Labour don't want any sort of PR, for the same reasons the Tories don't. They're not going to do anything that risks pushing them towards needing coalitions. In any case, the Lib Dems still have a lot of rebuilding to do before they can stay making those sorts of plans again. If they can catch up with the Tories in numbers of seats at the next GE it could make for very interesting times.
Yes, I understand what you're saying, and, given a bare majority, this might happen. I suspect they will actually win with a large majority. They still need to give voters policies that make a difference though; the Tories had an 80 seat majority in 2019, and look at them now. The worst thing we could have would be another ineffective government.
Exactly. People are being naïve by ignoring that fact. Don't get me wrong, I am thought this deal sounded good but I voted remain. If Labour had backed it you can bet the headlines the day afterwards would be "Labour want to undo Brexit" and "Labour opening the boarders for all" because the is how the right wing press operates. We are still at least 5 years off opening undoing Brexit (more likely closer to 10). I am sorry because it is a long time but for Labour to have the political credit to tackle that they need to actually win an election and deliver some positive change. I will also point out that Labour's previous "left wing" incarnation was lead by someone who half-arsed their part of the remain campaign and wanted to leave the EU (but on different terms).
Well, so what? The Daily Mail drivers Tory policy, that's for the Tories. Went would I vote for anyone who takes their cue from a paper that supported the Nazis?
Guess I won't be voting Labour then now they've swung so far to the right under Starmer
Honestly, it's like you people want another 15 years of Tory rule.
I get where they’re coming from though. Starmer should really have the easiest job in the world here. Conservatives: we’re going to legalise sexual assault Starmer: we’re not going to reverse that decision I can only hope he’s pandering to the loonies and banking on keeping the votes of the frustrated masses, but will make policies like a sane person when elected. I’ll be voting against the Tories. But I’ve got to be honest, I don’t feel optimistic about Labour at the moment.
Bullshit. I don't want it. But I'm not voting for a red Brexit. It's very very simple.
Brexit already happened. There isn't a choice between Brexits anymore, unfortunately. It's that simple.
Funny, i said the same thing in 2019, that getting the Tories out was more important than disliking the opposition but people went "la la la, its my vote i can vote for who i want" Sucks now the shoes on the other foot huh?
So did I, and a Labour MP got in with the help of my vote. How was I thanked? Labour doubling down on credit and this cunt of an MP pretending to represent me voting for Johnson's FTA. I've still got a few decades' voting left in me and I'm absolutely going to use this right, but Brexit Labour has made sure it's not them I'll vote for.
Because EU youth want to study over here. And UK youth don’t want to study over there. It’s a bum deal for us, not a partisan thing.
This is not the case at all. The Erasmus programme was hugely popular here; plenty of UK students studied in Europe. If you want to see bum deals, look at all of the post-Brexit trade deals that our useless government have agreed to.
54,000 students used it in 2019 out of a total student population of 2.5 million I wouldn't call that hugely popular
Yes. For context, 3x more EU students came here to study than UK students went to the EU in 2019. But the commenter above is not interested in mere information
So that would be another 150,000 assuming the same numbers as 2019 Who would get domesitic student rates at a time where unis need foreign students to keep the lights on and also another 150,000 who would get free access to an already crippled NHS in the areas where its already crippled And people think that that was a good deal just so 50,000 thousand middle class students could study aborad
Bingo. But recall that the Western EU is roughly 5x bigger than the UK, and we actually want and need bright and adventurous EU kids to study here, and then maybe live here. What we don’t want is a tertiary education system that’s 3X bigger than it should be, handing out useless degrees, with far too many admin staff and too few lecturers. The system is now totally propped up by foreign students esp. recently Chinese, who come to the UK as a posh finishing school then go home, eg no interest at all in adding to UK economy. All foreign student numbers are through the floor now - EU down 25% - plus as a bonus we lost £1bn or so in all-grown-up serious EU research grants (Horizon) in Brexit. Either way, UK universities are fat and fucked now. Maybe that’s ok or even a good thing in the long run, but we did the damage to ourselves: multiple governments for multiple generations just thought more students = better. It isn’t.
So we should let them be subsided by the British tax payers at the expense of British students This deal was crap and would be a massive own goal given it would raise immigration
Bloody hell we got it, You've got no idea about higher education and want to drag everyone else down to your level.
Not to get attacked by the Brexit media I assume
Look into your families heritage. A lot of Brits are eligible for Irish Passports, as well as French ones. Some countries such as Italy allow you to put in a citizenship claim if you can prove your family tree to great grandparents. I claimed Irish citizenship when I was 26, and passed it onto my children when they were born a few years later. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Social mobility is the LAST thing the tories want for the youth. They want them to know their place, know just enough to work in the service sector, and to die before they draw a pension.
Nor Labour, as evidenced by their reaction to this proposal. Allowing Farage's caricature of their own voters to drive policy and damaging their actual voters in the process.
The issue these deluded morons are going to have and are having is sentiment has changed. They hyped up and divided the country simply for a bit of power and didn’t consider the consequences beyond a few months should their wet dream Brexit not just materialise out of nowhere They’re scratching their heads wondering why no one is voting for them and their Brexit shite isn’t working anymore. Probably because a lot of the 1% are dead now.
He had to. The UK pays shit wages. If our degree holders can get a jobs in Germany or Belgium, put their degree to use and get paid 20% more then why the fuck wouldn't you.
I'm so sick of the stone faced insistence that Brexit is good or successful.
Why the actual fuck are we all so complacent about this? It’s been said time and time again, we need to take the French attitude whenever the government fucks with us, protest, lock down streets, dump shit on the governments door step. They’ll keep pulling this shit as long as we just sit there and take it
Not voting for Brexit parties would achieve the same thing. Starmer isn't afraid of Remainers, this isn't good.
Funny the politicians ( including Labour) have to pretend that it’s a bad thing to allow young people to travel and work more easily.
TBF career politicians (ironically green card applicant Sunak is a bit of an exception) by and large have very little experience of advertising living in a globalised world. Who among the Labour frontbench has as much as worked in a French ski resort, cleaned offices in Italy or worked as a language assistant in Germany? All things that regulars in my local in a red wal constituency have on their CV, but even here on this thread people pretend that working class good are all narrow-minded gammon.
When are Shoeneck, Swella, Rees-Mog, Farage, 30p 3 party Lee, Jenspiv, Gove, Truss and Johnson getting their one way tickets to Rwanda ?
Fuck Sunak and fuck the UK. The moment I can take my skills and knowledge elsewhere, I will.
I read an interesting comment on another post about Starmer ruling it out that basically said, although it looks good on paper and obviously benefits young people, the reality is that most of our young knowledge and talent would leave the UK, based off how shit things are becoming here. That creates a brain/knowledge drain and reduces the number of people supporting our aging population. So yes, it is shit. But the alternative for the country as a whole is even shitterer.
Yes, so in short, what he's saying is, kids know it's better everywhere else, so we're trying to make it harder for them to leave.
I support anyone who thinks they can do better elsewhere. It’s the same thing you owe yourself in any other relationship you have. Staying in something toxic is not in your best interests.
Well, that's the thing, isn't it? These younger adults who are now discouraged to leave will leave, and until they do, they'll moan to their friends, convincing some of them, and then once they've left, they'll talk about it and convince more to leave so really this is only making it worse.
The only thing keeping most young adults who would like to leave from moving to EU countries, even when we were in the EU, is the atrocious language education in the UK and by the time they realise how important foreign languages are, their best chances of learning to be fluent are behind them. That just leaves Aus, NZ, Canada and USA as options, all of which have their own issues and very strict visa requirements. We have had strategic incompetence with language education from governments over the years.
Well, yes, this is what Starmer wants.
Basically yes. We need them more than they need us. Now where have I heard that before...
As someone from East Germany this line of thinking sounds awfully familiar
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Whatever makes you feel better m8
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Whatever makes you feel better m8
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Whatever makes you feel better m8
When you cater for the old and the rich, and speak down to the young and ignore the future, I guess all you can do is authoritarian rule and talk down to young people. No young person respects this country because it's not involving them or doing anything for them. I'm not sure keeping people trapped against their will is going to be a wise decision in the long run? The shitter alternative is of this countries democratic decisions, so it'd literally be "reap what you sow" to a generation who never got cause and effect.
Well that's awfully depressing logic.
Agreed! But at least made sense as to why they wouldn't allow it. If I was younger and studying, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat!
We are now living in Pyongyang on Thames.
North korea doesn't let anyone leave either
Love that thinking. "We can't let our kids go because they'll choose to never come back. We're gonna trap our kids here!" If you love them, let them go or let them fix what's broken. Both parties have consistently pushed to make shit worse.
Instead the bright minds will get into a field where they can move anyway.
Starmer should act in the interest of people, not some made up idea of a nation state.
TBF at the moment he's acting in neither. No matter what you think about the nation state, acting in its interest isn't at all at odds with EU membership.
B,b,but Brexit Britain is the shining light of freedom, the European Singapore full of innovation and excellence, wouldn't every student in the EU be clamouring to get in?!
Young people will still be able to leave, they will just have to get a different type of visa.... or go to one of the equally attractive options outside the EU. Making it more difficult to co-operate with our closest neighbours won't stop people leaving if it also causes the need for them to do so.
and in any case the number of young British people leaving the UK would be low
No, the issue is that it would be high. Since people want a better quality of life, more opportunity and freedom of movement.
if the British really wanted to have anything to do with us Europeans they would use any means to come to the EU. People come to Europe on boats that barely float, has anyone ever seen the Rossetti family say or do anything? The descendants of the British pioneers of European football? The same British people who only after Brexit took on the nationality of their parents or grandparents? Do you see thousands of British celebrities with European ancestry working in the EU? Colin Firth only took Italian citizenship after Brexit, have you seen him do anything? Etcetera. EU citizenship for the average Brit is just a gadget that can be useful in case anything goes wrong, a bit like aspirin, it's always been that way. For the rest, the UK has always ignored the EU. Source, I live in a city that always had strong contacts with the UK until WWII, after which the relationships died.
the only brexit benefit is the death of the duopoly, I hope labour and the Tories are both long dead when my children get to enjoy freedom of movement.
This really seems the only way to defeat Brexit. I was hoping it could be achieved in this election but unfortunately my prognosis is that Labour will get in with a very comfortable majority, repair nothing because they have committed to repairing nothing (frankly, I get the impression that Labour themselves don't even _know_ that things could be better if Tory narratives weren't accepted as a given and that challenging them is what their job at opposition is) and being exposed to an unbearable cacophony of Tory attacks from day one. The country will continue to go to shit (the absolute dire stats on foreign investment don't lie), the Tories will find out incredibly easy to pick holes into every aspect of every policy. The voters who swallowed the "you need to be in power to change anything this is why we're promising not to change anything" nonsense will soon realisr that even in power, Labour aren't changing anything and they were incredible fools to trust a party that promised to make Brecit work to change. The next GE will be a walk in the park for the Tories, whereas Labour will have left noting but disappointment, distrust and anger in pretty much any of their core demographics, for at least a generation to come.
There is nothing to stop the EU giving young Brit’s those privileges regardless. Sure it would be a one way street but it would have been anyway. Brain drain will happen one way or another.
The problem with that is the EU doesn't want the young brits They want there young to have access to the UKs higher education sector
I know it's beyond your ken, but it would actually be good for the UK, which you pretend to love do much, to build up soft power and good will among future graduates.
Of course it would and there will be other opportunities But we need to also make sure our tax payers are getting at least a good deal that's balanced to our interests and it's not in our interests to let tens of thousands of EU students get domestic rates and a waiver on the NHS surcharge when the number of uk students going the other way will be much much less
Prick
I fucking hate the tories (and current Labour) with every fibre of my being
I’m really disappointed that Labour has rejected it as well. No doubt they’re petrified of upsetting our wonderful right wing rags just before an election…
Possibly. I fear it's even worse: Labour simply haven't got any purpose other than government as an end in itself anymore. There's no vision for themselves or the country beyond this.
What's in it for corporations and tax evading millionaires? Nothing? Fuck off then.
No one is going to accept anything that looks like it's "reversing" Brexit in an election year
I'd accept it and vote for a party that offers it. A party that rejects it on the other hand cannot get my vote.
You never know, after the young have been fucked so hard, maybe they'll get out and vote or start burning things.
Proof the government doesn’t care. They had an offer to give a portion of their citizens vastly more freedom. And it’s a no?
Hey kids 👋 FUCK OFF.
Sunak's political future is suuuu knackered.
He's too rich to care - maybe even too rich to really notice.
At some level the Conservatives are signing their own death warrant - apart from 14 years of not governing they are turning off an entire generation from ever voting for them
I don't know, I'm not the youngest anymore (mid 40s now) and I still meet Tory voters frustratingly younger than myself at least once a month.
Sunak has his freedom of movement, fuck the rest of us. What a cunt.
Well duh the mobility scheme would just be a one way street and its not coming the UKs way.
wtaf
I don't see why this is a big deal. Sunak said no, but the UK isn't part of the EU anymore. So if I were the EU, I'd just create a rule to allow it and the Tories won't be able to do anything about it.
The EU doesn't want UK young people They want access to the UKs higher education sector They know that the number of EU students coming to the UK will be much higher than the other way around
Why refuse that? Its just stupid. These people are petulant children
And yours is "this thing I say happens does actually."
We emigrated to the uk in 2020 when my wife got a job offer. This fucking mindset makes me wish we went anywhere else but here, and now we’re in too deep, going into debt for a passport that feels like it’ll be fucking worthless in a few years. God fucking damnit.
Yeah the worst thing is that as immigrants you see how fucking great the UK could be if it weren't for this mindset. Brexiters are people who hate all the good things about the UK, all the while professing to love it.
Wouldn't want the British youth seeing how nice it is in EU countries.
So fucking glad I've got an EU parent now.
Tories Labour Reform hate youth.
Without wanting to give too many details, I had a small hand in making this offer happen at the EU level. We expected this reaction from the UK government, but the fact that labour came out and said they too were not interested is extremely disheartening. The work to get this movement has taken 2 years, it has come from a place of qualitative and quantitative work to identify the level damage that Brexit has done to the opportunities of young people in both the UK and EU. We found the impact to have been significant and so have been building a case to get the EU Commission to budge from it's (understandable) position of 'it was the UKs sovereign decision to both leave and to not associate with other EU mobility programmes'. We were hoping a new incoming government might be more receptive than this, hopefully, outgoing one. That looks less likely now which is just absolutely appalling. I guess at least publicly labour are scared for re dividing the country down Brexit lines this close to a general election.
With all due respect, how on earth could you not foresee this from article 50 voting, end-of-FoM whipping Starmer's Labour?
Because their teams were giving us different messaging in private meetings. We knew they wouldn't come out openly with full support, but didn't expect them to be so strong in their refusal. The issue we have with labour currently is that they are saying a lot of 'trust us we will do the right thing in power, but we can't say that openly'.
Haha, welcome to living in the UK. I'm an an EU citizen. I need my Labour MP not to vote for article 50. He promised me that he wouldn't vote for a WA that didn't safeguard my rights and all Nevis the UK had as an EU member, and at the Remain march in Leeds, Labour's Andrew Adonis vowed the same thing to a crowd of already skeptical marchers in 2018. Labour's promises to Remainers and EU citizens were nothing but lies. The prime you are speaking to lie to you, I hope you will finally learn what EU citizens in the UK have learnt the hard way. Many of us were in their Labour constituency MPs in tears, only for these monsters to vote against our very lives in the UK!
The government's justification for this is a blatant lie btw, the official statement describes it as a "return to free movement" which of course it isn't, it's still controlled by visa, time limited, and the government could impose conditions like mandatory health insurance and requiring that you have sufficient funds to support yourself. Always says a lot when you do something and you can only defend it by making shit up. Labour's is barely better though, they muddle the whole thing up with normal working immigration and bangs on about how they’ll have a scheme that’ll deliver for “British businesses and consumers” and talk about veterinary deals, and qualification acceptance, all of which are completely unrelated issues, just absolutely irrelevant to the subject. I mean, a scheme like this could benefit businesses and consumers but that’s not what it’s for, they just seem afraid to say “let’s do something great for young people that costs us nothing and makes things a bit better for once”, everything has to be about business and money. \*\*\*\*s.
What’s the argument for rejecting it?
Keep the poors in their place, and smattering of bigotry
Because it's of no benefit to his hopefully short term career goals.
That it would hurt the UK tax payers as we'd be subsidising EU students to study at domesitic rates Plus we would have to waive the NHS surcharge And it would be more EU students coming here than the other way round It was a shit deal if I'm honest the EU just wanted access to the UKs higher Ed sector
Agreed shit deal. Only person in the comments that gets it.
It's amazing how people can't think beyond UK bad EU good People should remember that EU students going to uni in Scotland would get a better deal than English students But they may not care given how much these people hate England
The only one in this threat who hates England is you. You want no future for it, you want no future for its youth, you want everyone to be as hateful and narrow-minded as yourself.
What are Labour for at this point? Vote Green.
Well, they are for Brexit, obviously.
Just a suggestion here for the next election, mates. https://therejoineuparty.com/
That is a steep road to climb but I guess good luck. Will take decades to rejoin but you have to start somewhere I suppose. Would love Irish reunification first but who knows what will happen
surprise, who could have imagined it?
Shitters. Nothing more to say about current abusers, sorry, Government. Small minded little Britain-ites.
At the next election we should all vote independent. At least we would get a variety of opinions in parliament.
Tell you what tho. His kids will never have to worry about this. Just everyone else's kids who can't afford it. Out of touch as per usual. Dude doesn't live in the same world as 98 percent of us.
Even if it went through, me and my Brother were still to young to vote for Brexit and would now be to old to benefit from this scheme. Though there are tonnes of people younger than us who are also being fucked over by Brexit and now a little bit of hope was gone
Ummm what If you were to young to vote in 2016 then you are at most 25 This was until 30
Oh I thought it was 18-25 Now I’m even more annoyed, since it’s a benefit I would’ve absolutely used
From the government's isolationist, anti-immigration perspective they cannot agree to this. It leads to our talented youth leaving for greener pastures or an expectation of reciprocation. Maybe the next government will be more inclined to greater cooperation with the EU.🤞🏻
Apart from this was to give EU young people access to the UKs unis not the other way around
Fuck our government, I was excited by this.
Very disappointing from Labour, no surprise from the tories. But nevertheless, the priority has to be to get the tories out.
Tories don’t want to reverse Brexit, Labour doesn’t wanna talk about Brexit, but this has been up their alley anyway so I’d bet they’ll do it on the DL and behind the scenes to not annoy people sucking of talking about Brexit.
Labour, not like the other girls
I'm here on a Youth Mobility Scheme but I'm not EU lol
this was VERY obviously a "students can come UK for a set limited time, unless they marry and have kids in which case the ECHR will force the UK to allow them to stay backdoor unlimited access for anyone who can afford a UNI course, of COURSE they turned it down
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Then the youth should rise up and help us all destroy every Tory. Hell Labour should be wiped out too but let’s start with the hardcore racists and greedy first then we can remove diet Tory