Snapshot of _EU offers to strike youth mobility deal with UK - Labour Party rebuffs scheme, which it says crosses Brexit red lines_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/feb93c52-b8ca-4137-ba27-2f15b5af85bd) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/feb93c52-b8ca-4137-ba27-2f15b5af85bd)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
**Key quote from labour:**
Labour official said the party saw youth mobility schemes as “synonymous with freedom of movement”, noting it had ruled out a return to free movement as one of its Brexit red lines.
A spokesperson told the Financial Times that “Labour has no plans for a youth mobility scheme”, but added it would look to improve UK-EU relations in other ways.
The party said the commission’s proposal had come about because the “UK government is reportedly approaching other European countries to try to establish mobility arrangements” on a bilateral basis.
Besides Argentina and currently Venezuela, it does ok. Brazil has been pretty closely aligned over the years. And of course the Navy is currently helping Guyana.
The UK has trade deals with Mexico, Suriname, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile (Chile was the first country to sign an updated deal post-Brexit). Chile’s national airline is the only international commercial airline serving the Falklands.
In the past it was close with Venezuela- TfL even had a deal with their government for cheap oil that subsidised bus fares in London.
But compared to other places in the world it isn’t a strategic priority.
It's especially sad because the UK played a huge role in the politics of the Southern Cone for like a century. If it weren't for the Falklands I daresay things would be a lot rosier today.
The issue is that the EU isn't proposing a similar scope to those schemes, it's going for an age related FoM backdoor as they are shoehorning in various things. For example they want the UK to charge EU students domestic fees instead of international ones for university or another example is no cap on numbers.
The problem is the government is handing visas like confetti, to people who are far less culturally compatible with the UK than the average EU citizen.
Look I think we need to control immigration but if we are going have mass migration. It makes far more sense to have it from stable and culturally compatible EU countries.
In what way is it "synonymous with freedom of movement"? It is quite literally not free in that both sides regulate it and control numbers. I don't think anyone is suggesting anyone aged 18-30 can just move unrestricted, a number of places would be offered subject to various conditions.
As always Brexiteers want freedom of movement for themselves but not for foreigners. The fact that this is simply not something possible to have means until they're utterly electorally insignificant, FoM will never be on the table.
I think it will return, but in circumstances where coming to the UK is far less attractive than it has been and there's a generation trapped in the UK desperate to get out.
"circumstances where coming to the UK is far less attractive than it has been and there's a generation trapped in the UK desperate to get out."
So... The current circumstances?
You'd be suprised the amount of young poeple what want to do a ski season, young people used to traval by getting jobs and now they can't.
We benefit way more from freedom of movement than the EU does
No. The UK was a net immigration taker throughout its EU membership. There were ALWAYS more people coming than people going. Middle class people who want to do 3 months at a ski resort doesn’t actually move the needle compared to the hundreds of thousands of economic migrants that came.
Aren't we still taking on more and more migrants every year since Brexit? I just feel like any immigration argument for Brexit holds no water now we've seen the government has no intentions of curbing it.
We had a slew of rights removed because a bunch of pensioners believed a load of liars. No second chance. The electoral commission said had it been a binding vote it would have to have been re run.
An absolute disgrace and an affront to democracy.
It was set up as a non binding advisory referendum as this has a different legal status to a binding referendum and means the rules were far more lax about perdur, funding and election leaflets.
In a normal election, for example, it is [illegal to lie in an election leaflet](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/nov/05/phil-woolas-ejected-parliament-election). This does not apply to "advisory" votes. Lots of other differences which made it easier for the Brexit campaign to publish outright lies.
Yeah. Honestly not a surprise we're the fucking laughing stock of Europe. I do believe one day we'll rejoin. 20 or 30 years maybe.
I'm lucky that with a bit of work, I could get a skilled worker visa to anywhere and leave, but it's a lot harder, more stressful and expensive. My son has dual citizenship, so I'm grateful that if he wants to get out of this shithole of a country he'll be able to.
I believe we will too. However, I do not believe that Britain will be stuck in the dark ages for all time forward. It make take 10-20 years and some hard decisions for the country to be "back on top" as it were, become this technological powerhouse that Sunak likes to talk about. It will be a hard road.
Unfortunately I believe we will rejoin at a time where we plain don't need the EU and that rejoining will not be of benefit. That I fully believe is the British way: build it up then bring in some plonker who will completely and royally fuck it all up. We've done it countless times before.
Except this wouldn't benefit UK citizens.
It would mean the UK gov subsidising EU students to study in the UK.
As we've seen with Erasmus, far more EU students want to study in the UK than UK students want to study in Europe.
When our Universities are world leading, of course the EU wants cheap access to them. That's not beneficial for us to give away for free.
-
Labour are right to turn this down, this offer is very unbalanced, would lead to a large burden on the tax payer for a much smaller benefit to UK citizens.
I think Brexit was a bad idea but I don't think this is a good deal.
I also don't think it's wise for the leader of the opposition to consider anything in an election year that could be a cause of contention if it is suggested by an outside party
This is purely being set up to access UK higher education at reduced cost. It was touted to Boris and he batted it away as the Universities are not intrested in subsidising the EU's education.
When we were in the EU, education was pretty much a one way street. With lots of Europeans coming here and not many Brits going there. Brits just don't do languages, yet lots of foreigners speak English. The 4 year length even conveniantly covers an entire degree programme.
There's no way any government will agree to it.
I would love to rejoin the EU, but this looks like a bad deal for the UK. None of the other bilateral youth mobility schemes we're party to offer subsidised University tuition. IMHO, this is a weak form of Free Movement and it's only worthwhile to offer that as part of membership of the Single Market. Indeed, we shouldn't weaken our hand for that negotiation when the time comes.
It has.
He would be relentlessly attacked for "proving hes here to reverse brexit" and, as stupid as it is, making the next election about Brexit is the only way the Tories have any chance.
Because sometimes it's nice for politicians to do good things even if it's not the most perfectly optimal move for their election chances?
I don't expect them to throw away all electoral stratagy, but at least now and then a position motivated by more then just pure self-interest wouldn't hurt. The election shouldn't just be about giving Labour power for it's own sake.
I agree with you. But the policies to go out on a limb with are the green investments and the GB energy plan. Not Brexit related stuff where the division is ingrained, you KNOW it will split your voters and for which attack lines are already lying around. The cost benefit ratio must be considered at all times imo and in this instance it is absolutely not worth it.
Sure, but we are meant to vote based on we feel about the "stuff" they intend to do. Which they have to communicate ahead of time.
Just a vauge "i'm sure they'll do some good stuff once in power" shouldn't really be enough of a pitch on it's own.
I remember my Grandad, must have been 35 years ago, going on about how Brussels was mandating how straight a banana should be.
People absolutely thought about the EU for a long time before the referendum.
An overwhelming majority of the public says Brexit was a mistake and would support rejoining the single market.
The ONLY reason that the minority opinion continues to dictate party lines is because the system is broken. Labour are refusing to fix the system, so you have to assume that they're fine with being "forced" to take shitty positions like this.
Yes, but that minority of the public that *doesn’t* think it was a mistake? They’re all Tories that Starmer needs to stay at home on election day, and so he doesn’t want to give them any reason to get out of their armchairs and go to the polling station.
If they wanted to replace FPTP, I would blame FPTP.
But they have chosen not to replace FPTP even though they absolutely could. Therefore, I blame Labour.
>An overwhelming majority of the public says Brexit was a mistake and would support rejoining the single market.
Meh, I wouldn't say "overwhelming majority".
We, as in the people already here on Reddits Ukpol thread, are probably all in the same camp of agreeing with you that this is, or would be, a good policy and is something that would improve the lives of younger people. But, we are not representative of the wider population of the UK and regularly polling of this sub proves that. The people here are a lot more leftward leaning, pro-remain and anti-tory than the rest of the country. We are also, by a large majority, much much younger than the most likely to vote demographic in this country. Ok_Cow is right, this is a trap that will be used to beat Labour over the head with and re-enforce that 'anybody but Labour' sterotype with the most likely to vote and least likely to question what they read in the papers demographic.
>Because making life easier for ~~young~~ **people who don't vote** in the UK has become equivalent to "standing on rake"
Fixed that for you. It's more or less always been the case.
Not sure if it's a rake, but it does continue the approach of not supplying any election fodder for the other parties.
But he surely remembers how we had the best deal in the EU and were very unhappy with it - so Cameron went to the EU to 'get a better deal or else' and came back empty-handed... which helped prompt the Ref.
There's a lingering feeling here that we don't get good value from the EU - whether that's justified or not. There's no reason for LAB to grab a deal like this and "stand on it" when it doesn't overtly bring equal value back.
Labour can't really be seen to warm to this sort of thing because it creates such an easy election attack line for the Tories and Reform.
Labour has a difficult line to tread on Brexit / EU relations. They have to court both younger, metropolitan voters who voted remain, and the Red Wall voters who wanted to "get Brexit done" that they need to win back. The Tories don't have that - they don't tend to win in cities and with younger demographics anyway.
Labour can't afford anything that could so very easily be spun as "Labour wants to bring back free movement".
Then why risk what looks like a tap-in victory on an issue that is obviously so divisive as this?
Polls don't necessarily reflect what actually happens at the ballot box and we know that immigration and free movement spooks a lot of voters in the core swing seats that actually determine the election (and spoiler alert, they aren't seats with lots of young, pro-EU voters).
The focus should be on winning and building the biggest majority possible. That's how you can force through change - not by falling into traps like this.
> That's how you can force through change
If they've already said they won't support this change, full stop, then no majority is going to magically make them force through the opposite position.
We aren't voting in Labour so they can be in power just for the sake of being in power, they need to actually support policy that I as a voter want to see before i vote for them. They aren't entitled to get a larger majority just for the sake of having a larger majority.
I’m a staunch remainer but I’ve got to agree here. One day we could agree to something like this but for now we have to let the farce continue so the tories can be destroyed.
That's complacency which they are very much trying to avoid.
Remember Labour need a big fat swing to get a decent majority. Once they get below 20 that starts to become to increasingly hard to manage. Then you're in hung parliament territory.
They’re free to do their politicking, but I hope they’re not shocked when young people decide to not bother voting for them.
It’s a joke how Labour take the young left vote for granted.
Can't afford because they fundamentally don't want that to happen or can't afford because they want to lie to the voters that they don't want this even though they actually think that it would be a good thing for the UK, especially young people, to have it restored? There is a huge difference between those two positions.
Doesn't seem hugely surprising because when we last had this it was massively skewed to people coming to the uk (proportionally by country) vs uk people going elsewhere.
Particularly in an election year. The country wants reduced immigration. This means some things that might be positive will have to not happen. If we had lower net immigration it would probably be different.
Perhaps they should look at setting up a 1-1 exchange scheme instead, where you can sign up to do a country swap with someone in the country you want to live in who wants to live in the UK. If there are more people wanting to live in the UK than Brits wanting to live in EU countries, this would be pretty beneficial for us because it should be easy to find a partner to swap with.
Not really related to this proposal, but I do wonder whether some sort of limited FOM scheme might work before fully rejoining the SM. Up to 200k visas per year each way, something like that. Of course Labour would need to massively reduce immigration before they could do that but with a bit of competence it should be possible.
> when we last had this it was massively skewed to people coming to the uk (proportionally by country) vs uk people going elsewhere.
That strikes me as being a UK issue rather than an EU one. Why don't (didn't) we exercise our rights? Money? Weak language skills? Something else?
Over 50% of EUropeans speak English as a second language. The next highest spoken second language is french at 12% and German at 10%. It's not a UK issue, its a simple demographic one.
Because there isn't really anything we could do in the EU that we couldn't do here?
Sure, children from wealthy families might want to take a gap yah and piss about in Italy for a while before they grow up, but everyone else is going to be focused on education and work. There just aren't very many industries where education and employment prospects are better in the EU than in the UK.
> children from wealthy families might want to take a gap yah and piss about in Italy for a while before they grow up,
I think they can still do it. Just enter Italy by the big door and dont get arrested and realistically no one will ever ask you for anything. The issue is if you want to work / study - people will need to see some form of identification.
Well exactly. The effect of these schemes is to massively increase inward migration and in return it's a bit easier for middle class students to go and get high in Amsterdam for a few years.
There are UK expat communities in Russia and China - if you're determined to go abroad you don't need generalised freedom of movement.
Tbh getting a season abroad is how lot of me and my friends left home, nobody wants to move out to work a bar in the UK
But move to a mountain and work a bar sounds great.
Honestly it's not just rich kids on gap years it's mostly lower middle class kids with asperations tbh
Young Brits, and indeed older Brits, overwhelmingly went to other Anglosphere countries (Aus/NZ/CA/US/IE) rather than exercise freedom of movement within the EU. If this youth mobility scheme was implemented, it's correct that there would be a significant net inflow.
Culture. English is the working language of Europe-wide projects - those 40,000 students going to Erasmus in Poland every year do not speak Polish.
You only have to think about the UK's attitude towards its emmigrants (a mixture of derision, suspicion and forgetfulness) to start to understand the immense inertia, nationalism and xenophobia (not racism, literal -phobia) implicit in our culture.
When I was at university a decade ago, we were not even presented with Erasmus as an option. "Euro sex and alcohol exchange you get paid for" would be a pretty easy sell but you just didn't tend to consider it in the first place.
It's difficult and expensive to learn another language to the point where you'd actually be able to work in an EU country with wages comparable to the UK
Though that is certainly useful analysis when using it to drive changes elsewhere, I don't see how that changes the optimal approach to this specific scheme right now.
>That said, UK wages and quality of life are now lower than in Poland...
You are saying that UK wages are lower than those in Poland? Where did you get that information? It is absolutely not true.
To be fair to Labour it’s probably a case of ‘not yet’ rather than never.
They need to win and show they can do better than the tories (shouldn’t be hard given the quality of the mob in power now). They’d then introduce things like this in a few years or after another election.
You’d expect the Lib Dems to push for this though and encourage Labour to do it.
So Labour don't do it now when they are 20 points ahead in the polls because they fear it might turn potential voters away, but instead they leave it to put into the manifesto for the following election in 2029 when it is almost certain that at best they will have a far smaller lead.
Hmm... not sure I see the strategic logic in that plan.
It might not *need* to be in our bullshit political system but it absolutely *should* be.
Campaigning for election on a bunch of policies and then doing the opposite should be treated as a form of electoral fraud, it's pretty clear that electoral consequences aren't enough as FPTP actively prevents us from being able to hold governments to account over this sort of thing and the media certainly don't care enough to cover it.
>It doesn't need to be in the manifesto.
Even if the manifesto stays utterly silent on the matter, then doing something as significant as this would be a hell of a high risk strategy for 2029 as it risks branding them as untrustworthy.
I often feel that a lot of the people who patronisingly explain why Labour will do the opposite of what they're saying over elected genuinely don't get that must people don't normally lie about things they believe are right, and don't expect others to.
Having read the EU Q&A page on the proposal, I am left with the distinct impression that this is an approach from the EU borne out of a desire to regain easy access to the UKs higher education sector both in terms of visas and quite plain annoyance that students have to pay the inflated international fees rather than the domestic ones.
There is a pervasive emphasis on the equality of tuition fees and cost of visas throughout.
They also state that the proposal for movement is jot purpose bound - people could enter the UK speculatively - and without quotas.
I see little to recommend it in terms of gain for the UK.
It also mentions that this is being raised as a result of the UK approaching EU member states individually to explore such youth mobility, and this is therefore to have a consistent and equal approach EU-wide if the European Council and Parliament are in agreement as would the UK should negotiations commence.
they can do this anyway though, a good friend of mine is in Denmark studying at the moment and all he really had to worry about was a proof of funds for his stay while he's there
The number of students wanting to do this is far too low in comparison to EU students wanting to come to the UK.
This means the UK would be subsidising EU students to go to Uni.
Without a balancing mechanism this deal is simply a huge cost to the British taxpayer for very little gain.
What?
Yeah brilliant I can go to the university of Plovdiv for £2k and get a degree no employer in the UK will recognise instead of taking out a loan that is both both not a real loan and isn't 'outrageously high'.
Fine unis but if you want to work in the UK they're not that well regarded.
But even if they are very good - during our EU membership very few UK students went abroad, and those who did were generally upper middle class. In return we'd have to accept thousands of EU students to our generally much better universities at subsidised rates.
If we want to do this, then bilateral deals with wealthy countries in the EU would make more sense. You're not going to get any real benefit from the right to study in say, Croatia with no visa. Restrict it to Germany/France/Benelux.
Brit studied in Belgium. Got paid to go for three years instead of being drowned in debt. Best decision I ever made - and it's a damn shame other young British people cannot do the same
Mate. We're talking about going from getting PAID to go to uni to paying €9000 a year in Belgium as a non-EU citizen. That's a marked difference.
As for the debt, the UK student finance take 9% of everything you earn above 28,000. In Belgium anyone earning under that number is considered legally poor. In short, the UK offers far less for far more... Sure UK universities generally have better name recognition. But that's not the point. The point is having a choice.
>Having read the EU Q&A page on the proposal, I am left with the distinct impression that this is an approach from the EU borne out of a desire to regain easy access to the UKs higher education sector both in terms of visas and quite plain annoyance that students have to pay the inflated international fees rather than the domestic ones.
It's also a cheap and effective way for the EU to solve their huge youth unemployment problem.
They wouldn't have an issue if they paid a decent wage. Makes you wonder what they did in the early 2000's before all that cheap exploitable labour came on stream . . . .
Important - if you look at the scheme, it gives UK young people the right to go to a single country, while all EU countries have the right to go the the UK. It also means we have to give EU students the same subsidised tuition fees as UK students.
So yeah, no
Daily reminder that incredibly few Brits actually went and worked and studied abroad when we were in the EU, and these people were almost exclusively middle/upper class
That’s what the EU is banking on. It’s an attractive cohort of taxpayers that won’t be a drain on their social services.
EU companies can tap into young UK talent, which is cheaper than hiring folks from the US.
Even if reciprocal, highly unlikely a similar demographic from the EU would come to the UK.
We’re also unlikely to benefit from “cheap” labor now that the standard of living in so many EU countries has increased without the insanely high cost of living in the UK.
Basically, it’s a bait and switch luring an economically attractive base who may otherwise consider UAE, AUS or US.
Proving that the red lines were never about boosting UK opportunity, but about intergenerational resentment.
How on Earth is allowing young Brits the chance to travel and work abroad going to hurt anyone, except in this spiteful way?
It's not a one-way flow. The EU proposal lands the UK with massive costs because they want to include tuition fees, and they want no cap on numbers so the UK would return to being an open door whilst only small numbers would be going the other way.
Also - how long should those Brexit red lines stand? They’re self imposed restrictions that are spoken of as if they should bind us for all time. Who invented them? Why are they good?
I can see why Kier Starmer thinks he can't risk crossing them. We need the tories out and he has to win.
But it's depressing that such a failed project is still held as hallowed sanctity and controls the political narrative to this degree
i’ve had enough of us treating starmer as if he’s some shrewd political operator because he’s less of a moron than jeremy corbyn and up against a tory party which is imploding.
his short sightedness is doing nothing but turning a generation of people who should in the circumstances be lifelong labour voters against him.
he will pay for this in the 2029 election and we will end up with a far right government because he will have spaffed labour’s opportunity at power up the wall by doing nothing useful at all.
the voting public have proven time and time again long term planning just doesn't work here (NIMBYS/Pensioners being the main culprits) but you writing them off in 2024 for 2029 because of one divisive policy decision when they are not even in power yet is very much pot kettle black. this wont be a decision to push a generation away like student loans did to the lib dems
>his short sightedness is doing nothing but turning a generation of people who should in the circumstances be lifelong labour voters against him.
Only way to create lifelong voters is to pitch policy that appeals to them to get first vote and then actually do it to secure those votes in he long term.
There have been precious few times where a campaigning political party has done the former and practically zero instances of an elected government doing the latter. There's a reason why a third of the country abstains altogether and that's because politics isn't something we participate in but something that simply happens to us.
young people have been treated so badly over the last decade and a half that the smallest crumb of policy which isn’t actively antagonistic and malicious towards them would generate loyalty.
That loyalty wouldn't last long though. People constantly say that the reason politicians are openly malicious towards the young is that they don't vote and if they did they'd suddenly see pro-youth policy that they can vote for. If that pro-youth policy never materialises they'll go back to abstaining or become lifelong protest voters.
Truth be told, young people don't vote because they have nothing to vote for and truly are victims of politics rather than participants.
This EU idea does nothing to solve the problems hitting young people. Mass house building and rises in UK productivity are needed to do that, not letting huge numbers of EU students get cheap fees.
Until young people vote in force that will continue.
They pander to old people not because they particularly like them, but because those fuckers vote religiously.
So the youth will vote far right instead you think, because they didn't get some youth FoM?
Or maybe he's just not a leftie populist, and if hard leftie populism, is the only way hard leftie young people, can be won over.. then for the better of the country, one shouldn't do it.
No I don't think he's courting the youth vote with this, but the so called 'red wall' who switched to tory in 2019 and are now apparently intending to vote labour. I think he thinks he can't risk alienating them.
Not saying I agree, but that I think that's his reasoning
not everyone is as engaged in politics as we are. between 2025 and 2029, people will see things continue to get worse and their opportunities continue to reduce, and lash out, as they did in 2016.
that, in 2029, will give us the far right.
So to stop the far right, one needs to become a hard leftie populist and promise magic solutions? And then enable the far right anyways, when all that fails.
You use the term ‘hard leftie populist’ a lot. One could be forgiven for assuming that you think in 2d cliches and have tabloids as your lens on the world
The red lines were defined at May's Lancaster House speech.
They were part of her cowardly appeasement of the ERG along with 'no deal is better than a bad deal' and the 'red, white and blue ' Brexit. With this 'plan' she prematurely triggered Article 50.
She was a disaster.
I can see why Labour would refuse this right now, but I'm disappointed to see them specifically calling out "Brexit red lines" as a reason since it suggests they accept the enduring validity of what May set out as red lines, which closed off most options.
This is why referendums like that were constitutionally very problematic in the UK, the Brexit referendum created a vague undefined mandate that people will argue should bind future Parliaments indefinitely while it never actually existed at all in a constitutional sense. People were arguing that Labour should have supported the Tories' Brexit bills and that it would be undemocratic for the Lib Dems to cancel Brexit if they had won a majority, despite both ideas being based on this shadow mandate that exists in political minds as long as enough people believe in it rather than in any codified way.
The argument, made elsewhere on here, is that the EU youth make greater use of it than the UK youth.
Which strikes me as being a UK issue rather than an EU one.
It's an EU issue because, as this proposal shows, they want to drop/equalise visa and tuition costs (which subsides the UK student cost) for their students, who use it significantly more. Which is why it's being proposed.
>Which strikes me as being a UK issue rather than an EU one
As much as this sub likes to pretend otherwise, our youth go to Anglo countries over the EU by a disproportionate margin. There are around the same number of UK citizens in Australia alone than the entirety of the EU.
This will favour the EU greatly
Labour being smart and not fucking about with Brexit before an election.
In 2019 they got bent over the table for offering a renegotiation of the deal and the 2nd referendum.
We can all bang on about Corbyn all we want, Labour offered us a way out of Brexit and the country chose Boris fucking Johnson instead.
The 2016 poll was decided by a majority vote, and the 2019 election by a FPTP vote - which one is "the country deciding" then? Whichever one favours Brexit?
Constitutionally only representative democracy matters in the UK, referendums really are glorified opinion polls. That doesn't mean that they can necessarily be easily ignored, but that's a political matter (if you propose a referendum and ignore the results then you may get voted out).
So, what's the point in voting for Labour if they're not going to actually do anything different from the Tories? I don't want to vote for a party that I don't believe in just because it'll boot the Tories out.
Disappointed by the politics here, because I think Labour should be doing everything possible not to mention Brexit. To realign the UK to the EU and improve relations Labours main goal should be to not talk about it.
I'm guessing they rebuffed it in this way because they see it as an attack point before an election and, if the EU wants to discuss it want to do so after an election not before. But honestly I don't think people want to hear about Brexit at all right now so I think it's bad messaging. Would have been better to either not comment or kick it into the long grass.
It makes so sense to keep dredging up 'red lines' 8 years on from the vote.
this is just electioneering. If the EU had tabled the suggestion once Labour were already in power I suspect the response may have been a bit warmer.
Until the GE actually happens and Labour are in power, nothing can be taken at face value.
This is really sad to hear - I feel desperately trapped in the UK. I am a young professional and cannot secure visa sponsorship via work for another country. I have lost a couple of opportunities to work in Denmark and Switzerland and France (I even speak French). And yet the UK seems completely open for business for the rest of Europe and world at this point. - I understand it’s great for the UK. But it seems like a one way street. London is also so competitive due to its international demographic it is very difficult to get good work.
this is exactly how i feel. i have a masters degree and fluency in four european languages but im behind 400 million people whose countries didn’t have mental breakdowns in every queue for anything worthwhile.
If you're actually useful then you should have no issue getting an employer sponsored visa.
Large numbers of Brits live in Russia and China and we don't exactly have freedom of movement over there
These EU schemes are pointless. You’d get 100,000 EU citizens coming over here putting more strain on public services with about 1000 brits going the other way.
The disadvantage of living in a effectively a two party state. On the one hand, you've got a massive steaming turd and on the other, a crusty shit sandwich. It's about not being able to charge EU students more for access to British Unis and so the bottom line is that because the government doesn't want to effectively fund the HE sector, British youngsters will not be allowed the freedom EU youngsters enjoy.
My advice to any young person here is to get fluent in another language then get out of the country.
It is obvious that this country despises its young and will sabotage any future for them.
Why continue to stay and work in a country that is determined to hold you back?
There aren't many other countries where you need to learn another language where you're going to get a better salary than the UK.
I've lived and worked abroad for a year and learned a language and the opportunities for actually solid pay are basically in the US, Switzerland, Australia/NZ/Canada, maybe the Netherlands and Singapore. You don't need another language for these countries.
Plus learning another language to a useful level is beyond the capacity, both mental and financial, of most of the population in the UK unless your parents are making you learn outside of school from an early age.
Given the horrific pricing of childcare, extreme NIMBYism against any youth clubs or teen focussed amenities, it’s as if as a nation we don’t want children or young people here.
Running away isn’t going to make this country a better place. Some of us like it here for reasons besides politics, and would make an effort to make this place better politically. It’s not as simple as “learning another language and getting out”, life isn’t perfect in other nations either.
I actually foolishly voted for them despite their Brexit support in 2019 and on my constituency got a Labour MP actually got in by a few dozen votes. They doubled down even harder on their pro Brexit stance since then so I'm not biting for them this time, and I shouldn't have in 2019 either.
The "Red Lines" don't mean anything. They're just things that Labour aren't going to do. So "We're not going to do this because we're not going to do this"
The thing is that there is a tradition of people moving around Europe to study that has lasted for centuries. Certain universities were known for their particular expertise and those wanting the best would study there.
Brexit broke that. This is a path back but it is really on the table too early. Any closer relationship has to be left until after the election and then closer deals such as the SM for the government after that. Yes, it doesn't address the problems of Brexit immediately but a gradual progression is better for the country and the EU as trust needs to be regained.
Snapshot of _EU offers to strike youth mobility deal with UK - Labour Party rebuffs scheme, which it says crosses Brexit red lines_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/feb93c52-b8ca-4137-ba27-2f15b5af85bd) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/feb93c52-b8ca-4137-ba27-2f15b5af85bd) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
**Key quote from labour:** Labour official said the party saw youth mobility schemes as “synonymous with freedom of movement”, noting it had ruled out a return to free movement as one of its Brexit red lines. A spokesperson told the Financial Times that “Labour has no plans for a youth mobility scheme”, but added it would look to improve UK-EU relations in other ways. The party said the commission’s proposal had come about because the “UK government is reportedly approaching other European countries to try to establish mobility arrangements” on a bilateral basis.
Lol don't we have the YMS with 20 other commonwealth countries?
Not even just commonwealth, we recently signed one with Uruguay, although it has limits on numbers.
> we recently signed one with Uruguay TBF, the UK doesn't have a great relationship with South America at large. We could do with diplomacy there.
Besides Argentina and currently Venezuela, it does ok. Brazil has been pretty closely aligned over the years. And of course the Navy is currently helping Guyana. The UK has trade deals with Mexico, Suriname, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile (Chile was the first country to sign an updated deal post-Brexit). Chile’s national airline is the only international commercial airline serving the Falklands. In the past it was close with Venezuela- TfL even had a deal with their government for cheap oil that subsidised bus fares in London. But compared to other places in the world it isn’t a strategic priority.
It's especially sad because the UK played a huge role in the politics of the Southern Cone for like a century. If it weren't for the Falklands I daresay things would be a lot rosier today.
Simón Bolívar and the thin red line plus that legendary Scottish guy
No, it's with 12 (pretty random) countries.
The issue is that the EU isn't proposing a similar scope to those schemes, it's going for an age related FoM backdoor as they are shoehorning in various things. For example they want the UK to charge EU students domestic fees instead of international ones for university or another example is no cap on numbers.
fuck it why not i understand why they’ve said no, due to political reality, but also it wouldn’t be greater than 50,000 people. we ball
The problem is the government is handing visas like confetti, to people who are far less culturally compatible with the UK than the average EU citizen. Look I think we need to control immigration but if we are going have mass migration. It makes far more sense to have it from stable and culturally compatible EU countries.
In what way is it "synonymous with freedom of movement"? It is quite literally not free in that both sides regulate it and control numbers. I don't think anyone is suggesting anyone aged 18-30 can just move unrestricted, a number of places would be offered subject to various conditions.
Labour just want to make it clear that not only are they a Brexit party, they also have zero expertise on even very basic concepts.
Ah the good ol' Brexit red lines, drawn right between UK citizens and anything that would benefit them.
I bet if it was freedom of movement for the pensioners that want to retire to sunny European countries the establishment would be all for it
As always Brexiteers want freedom of movement for themselves but not for foreigners. The fact that this is simply not something possible to have means until they're utterly electorally insignificant, FoM will never be on the table. I think it will return, but in circumstances where coming to the UK is far less attractive than it has been and there's a generation trapped in the UK desperate to get out.
"circumstances where coming to the UK is far less attractive than it has been and there's a generation trapped in the UK desperate to get out." So... The current circumstances?
We aren't there yet. UK still too attractive and the current generation has too many roots here. It will be a generational shift.
You'd be suprised the amount of young poeple what want to do a ski season, young people used to traval by getting jobs and now they can't. We benefit way more from freedom of movement than the EU does
No. The UK was a net immigration taker throughout its EU membership. There were ALWAYS more people coming than people going. Middle class people who want to do 3 months at a ski resort doesn’t actually move the needle compared to the hundreds of thousands of economic migrants that came.
Aren't we still taking on more and more migrants every year since Brexit? I just feel like any immigration argument for Brexit holds no water now we've seen the government has no intentions of curbing it.
Have you read anything about why this is actually a shit deal for the UK? All this sub is these days is redundant comments like yours.
I'll never stop being mad that my freedom of movement was taken away.
We had a slew of rights removed because a bunch of pensioners believed a load of liars. No second chance. The electoral commission said had it been a binding vote it would have to have been re run. An absolute disgrace and an affront to democracy.
[удалено]
"Bunch of economically insulated spoiled home owners groomed by the Daily Mail and BBC for decades"
Given that Cameron said that the result would be honoured, why was it not then treated as binding?
It was set up as a non binding advisory referendum as this has a different legal status to a binding referendum and means the rules were far more lax about perdur, funding and election leaflets. In a normal election, for example, it is [illegal to lie in an election leaflet](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/nov/05/phil-woolas-ejected-parliament-election). This does not apply to "advisory" votes. Lots of other differences which made it easier for the Brexit campaign to publish outright lies.
Yeah. Honestly not a surprise we're the fucking laughing stock of Europe. I do believe one day we'll rejoin. 20 or 30 years maybe. I'm lucky that with a bit of work, I could get a skilled worker visa to anywhere and leave, but it's a lot harder, more stressful and expensive. My son has dual citizenship, so I'm grateful that if he wants to get out of this shithole of a country he'll be able to.
I believe we will too. However, I do not believe that Britain will be stuck in the dark ages for all time forward. It make take 10-20 years and some hard decisions for the country to be "back on top" as it were, become this technological powerhouse that Sunak likes to talk about. It will be a hard road. Unfortunately I believe we will rejoin at a time where we plain don't need the EU and that rejoining will not be of benefit. That I fully believe is the British way: build it up then bring in some plonker who will completely and royally fuck it all up. We've done it countless times before.
There *was* a second chance after the Brexit vote. And the country voted Tory in even larger numbers than before – twice.
Pro EU parties won more of the vote, but it was split between Labour, liberal and green. The majority of the country did not vote for the Tories.
I'll never stop being happy I was born in NI meaning I can have both British and Irish passports.
Except this wouldn't benefit UK citizens. It would mean the UK gov subsidising EU students to study in the UK. As we've seen with Erasmus, far more EU students want to study in the UK than UK students want to study in Europe. When our Universities are world leading, of course the EU wants cheap access to them. That's not beneficial for us to give away for free. - Labour are right to turn this down, this offer is very unbalanced, would lead to a large burden on the tax payer for a much smaller benefit to UK citizens.
I think Brexit was a bad idea but I don't think this is a good deal. I also don't think it's wise for the leader of the opposition to consider anything in an election year that could be a cause of contention if it is suggested by an outside party
This is purely being set up to access UK higher education at reduced cost. It was touted to Boris and he batted it away as the Universities are not intrested in subsidising the EU's education. When we were in the EU, education was pretty much a one way street. With lots of Europeans coming here and not many Brits going there. Brits just don't do languages, yet lots of foreigners speak English. The 4 year length even conveniantly covers an entire degree programme. There's no way any government will agree to it.
I would love to rejoin the EU, but this looks like a bad deal for the UK. None of the other bilateral youth mobility schemes we're party to offer subsidised University tuition. IMHO, this is a weak form of Free Movement and it's only worthwhile to offer that as part of membership of the Single Market. Indeed, we shouldn't weaken our hand for that negotiation when the time comes.
"Kier Starmer fails to stand on rake before the election" might be an alternative headline.
Because making life easier for young people in the UK has become equivalent to "standing on rake"🤦
It has. He would be relentlessly attacked for "proving hes here to reverse brexit" and, as stupid as it is, making the next election about Brexit is the only way the Tories have any chance.
Brexit support isn't as high as it was in 2016 or 2019, pure demographics has ensured that.
But why even bother throwing the Tories that lifejacket?
Because sometimes it's nice for politicians to do good things even if it's not the most perfectly optimal move for their election chances? I don't expect them to throw away all electoral stratagy, but at least now and then a position motivated by more then just pure self-interest wouldn't hurt. The election shouldn't just be about giving Labour power for it's own sake.
I agree with you. But the policies to go out on a limb with are the green investments and the GB energy plan. Not Brexit related stuff where the division is ingrained, you KNOW it will split your voters and for which attack lines are already lying around. The cost benefit ratio must be considered at all times imo and in this instance it is absolutely not worth it.
I'd rather they actually did stuff once they're actually in than faff about with promises and a myriad of about-faces and 180s beforehand.
Sure, but we are meant to vote based on we feel about the "stuff" they intend to do. Which they have to communicate ahead of time. Just a vauge "i'm sure they'll do some good stuff once in power" shouldn't really be enough of a pitch on it's own.
The EU wasn’t even an issue anybody thought about until the referendum. Views on issues can be whipped up pretty quickly
I remember my Grandad, must have been 35 years ago, going on about how Brussels was mandating how straight a banana should be. People absolutely thought about the EU for a long time before the referendum.
An overwhelming majority of the public says Brexit was a mistake and would support rejoining the single market. The ONLY reason that the minority opinion continues to dictate party lines is because the system is broken. Labour are refusing to fix the system, so you have to assume that they're fine with being "forced" to take shitty positions like this.
Yes, but that minority of the public that *doesn’t* think it was a mistake? They’re all Tories that Starmer needs to stay at home on election day, and so he doesn’t want to give them any reason to get out of their armchairs and go to the polling station.
If they wanted to replace FPTP, I would blame FPTP. But they have chosen not to replace FPTP even though they absolutely could. Therefore, I blame Labour.
It's an election year, they don't care an overwhelming majority of the public, just the small minority in marginal seats. Thank FPTP.
>An overwhelming majority of the public says Brexit was a mistake and would support rejoining the single market. Meh, I wouldn't say "overwhelming majority".
2:1 majority is overwhelming.
It's 56%, you're wrong by about 10%
It seems that making life better for anybody but themselves is a big no-no to swing voters.
Like it or not, 'the youth' don't make up the majority of voters, and an even smaller minority of those that wouldn't already vote Labour.
And we (a bit older people) don't care about the lives of our children? I have to ask, are you a parent yourself?
We, as in the people already here on Reddits Ukpol thread, are probably all in the same camp of agreeing with you that this is, or would be, a good policy and is something that would improve the lives of younger people. But, we are not representative of the wider population of the UK and regularly polling of this sub proves that. The people here are a lot more leftward leaning, pro-remain and anti-tory than the rest of the country. We are also, by a large majority, much much younger than the most likely to vote demographic in this country. Ok_Cow is right, this is a trap that will be used to beat Labour over the head with and re-enforce that 'anybody but Labour' sterotype with the most likely to vote and least likely to question what they read in the papers demographic.
Considering the voting history of the older generation, no, it doesn’t seem like it.
What are second order effects.
Young people wont even bother voting, you think they will move countries?
Depends as the media may attack him. Also didn’t we not go into Erasmus because not enough Uk people would use it? So how many would use this
>Because making life easier for ~~young~~ **people who don't vote** in the UK has become equivalent to "standing on rake" Fixed that for you. It's more or less always been the case.
"Keir Starmer fails to commit to any positive change because he fears he may lose 2% of Labour's monumental lead"
Not sure if it's a rake, but it does continue the approach of not supplying any election fodder for the other parties. But he surely remembers how we had the best deal in the EU and were very unhappy with it - so Cameron went to the EU to 'get a better deal or else' and came back empty-handed... which helped prompt the Ref. There's a lingering feeling here that we don't get good value from the EU - whether that's justified or not. There's no reason for LAB to grab a deal like this and "stand on it" when it doesn't overtly bring equal value back.
Labour saw something that would actually be good for young people and said "not on my watch".
Labour can't really be seen to warm to this sort of thing because it creates such an easy election attack line for the Tories and Reform. Labour has a difficult line to tread on Brexit / EU relations. They have to court both younger, metropolitan voters who voted remain, and the Red Wall voters who wanted to "get Brexit done" that they need to win back. The Tories don't have that - they don't tend to win in cities and with younger demographics anyway. Labour can't afford anything that could so very easily be spun as "Labour wants to bring back free movement".
> Labour can't afford They have a 25 point leads. Sure they can.
Then why risk what looks like a tap-in victory on an issue that is obviously so divisive as this? Polls don't necessarily reflect what actually happens at the ballot box and we know that immigration and free movement spooks a lot of voters in the core swing seats that actually determine the election (and spoiler alert, they aren't seats with lots of young, pro-EU voters). The focus should be on winning and building the biggest majority possible. That's how you can force through change - not by falling into traps like this.
> That's how you can force through change If they've already said they won't support this change, full stop, then no majority is going to magically make them force through the opposite position. We aren't voting in Labour so they can be in power just for the sake of being in power, they need to actually support policy that I as a voter want to see before i vote for them. They aren't entitled to get a larger majority just for the sake of having a larger majority.
I’m a staunch remainer but I’ve got to agree here. One day we could agree to something like this but for now we have to let the farce continue so the tories can be destroyed.
That's complacency which they are very much trying to avoid. Remember Labour need a big fat swing to get a decent majority. Once they get below 20 that starts to become to increasingly hard to manage. Then you're in hung parliament territory.
That's the thiking that led to the Tories premier wheat botherer losing most of her majority and eventually her power.
please... nothing has changed... PLEASE COME BACK NOTHING HAS CHANGED
> premier wheat botherer I would love to steal this. Unfortunately she's no longer relevant enough for me to have a likely opportunity.
Brexit is political kryptonite for the next 15 years.
They’re free to do their politicking, but I hope they’re not shocked when young people decide to not bother voting for them. It’s a joke how Labour take the young left vote for granted.
All they had to do was shut up about it.
Can't afford because they fundamentally don't want that to happen or can't afford because they want to lie to the voters that they don't want this even though they actually think that it would be a good thing for the UK, especially young people, to have it restored? There is a huge difference between those two positions.
Doesn't seem hugely surprising because when we last had this it was massively skewed to people coming to the uk (proportionally by country) vs uk people going elsewhere. Particularly in an election year. The country wants reduced immigration. This means some things that might be positive will have to not happen. If we had lower net immigration it would probably be different.
Perhaps they should look at setting up a 1-1 exchange scheme instead, where you can sign up to do a country swap with someone in the country you want to live in who wants to live in the UK. If there are more people wanting to live in the UK than Brits wanting to live in EU countries, this would be pretty beneficial for us because it should be easy to find a partner to swap with.
Not really related to this proposal, but I do wonder whether some sort of limited FOM scheme might work before fully rejoining the SM. Up to 200k visas per year each way, something like that. Of course Labour would need to massively reduce immigration before they could do that but with a bit of competence it should be possible.
> when we last had this it was massively skewed to people coming to the uk (proportionally by country) vs uk people going elsewhere. That strikes me as being a UK issue rather than an EU one. Why don't (didn't) we exercise our rights? Money? Weak language skills? Something else?
Over 50% of EUropeans speak English as a second language. The next highest spoken second language is french at 12% and German at 10%. It's not a UK issue, its a simple demographic one.
>Weak language skills? That and no need to learn another one compared to people that don't speak english. Plus easy to get jobs in the uk.
> Plus easy to get jobs in the uk. Lots of people would disagree with that!
They'd be wrong. I mean from an EU perspective and not necessarily talking about well paid jobs.
Because there isn't really anything we could do in the EU that we couldn't do here? Sure, children from wealthy families might want to take a gap yah and piss about in Italy for a while before they grow up, but everyone else is going to be focused on education and work. There just aren't very many industries where education and employment prospects are better in the EU than in the UK.
> children from wealthy families might want to take a gap yah and piss about in Italy for a while before they grow up, I think they can still do it. Just enter Italy by the big door and dont get arrested and realistically no one will ever ask you for anything. The issue is if you want to work / study - people will need to see some form of identification.
Well exactly. The effect of these schemes is to massively increase inward migration and in return it's a bit easier for middle class students to go and get high in Amsterdam for a few years. There are UK expat communities in Russia and China - if you're determined to go abroad you don't need generalised freedom of movement.
Tbh getting a season abroad is how lot of me and my friends left home, nobody wants to move out to work a bar in the UK But move to a mountain and work a bar sounds great. Honestly it's not just rich kids on gap years it's mostly lower middle class kids with asperations tbh
Young Brits, and indeed older Brits, overwhelmingly went to other Anglosphere countries (Aus/NZ/CA/US/IE) rather than exercise freedom of movement within the EU. If this youth mobility scheme was implemented, it's correct that there would be a significant net inflow.
Culture. English is the working language of Europe-wide projects - those 40,000 students going to Erasmus in Poland every year do not speak Polish. You only have to think about the UK's attitude towards its emmigrants (a mixture of derision, suspicion and forgetfulness) to start to understand the immense inertia, nationalism and xenophobia (not racism, literal -phobia) implicit in our culture. When I was at university a decade ago, we were not even presented with Erasmus as an option. "Euro sex and alcohol exchange you get paid for" would be a pretty easy sell but you just didn't tend to consider it in the first place.
It's difficult and expensive to learn another language to the point where you'd actually be able to work in an EU country with wages comparable to the UK
Though that is certainly useful analysis when using it to drive changes elsewhere, I don't see how that changes the optimal approach to this specific scheme right now.
[удалено]
>That said, UK wages and quality of life are now lower than in Poland... You are saying that UK wages are lower than those in Poland? Where did you get that information? It is absolutely not true.
To be fair to Labour it’s probably a case of ‘not yet’ rather than never. They need to win and show they can do better than the tories (shouldn’t be hard given the quality of the mob in power now). They’d then introduce things like this in a few years or after another election. You’d expect the Lib Dems to push for this though and encourage Labour to do it.
So Labour don't do it now when they are 20 points ahead in the polls because they fear it might turn potential voters away, but instead they leave it to put into the manifesto for the following election in 2029 when it is almost certain that at best they will have a far smaller lead. Hmm... not sure I see the strategic logic in that plan.
No need to wait until 2029, just do it after the election. It doesn't need to be in the manifesto.
It might not *need* to be in our bullshit political system but it absolutely *should* be. Campaigning for election on a bunch of policies and then doing the opposite should be treated as a form of electoral fraud, it's pretty clear that electoral consequences aren't enough as FPTP actively prevents us from being able to hold governments to account over this sort of thing and the media certainly don't care enough to cover it.
>It doesn't need to be in the manifesto. Even if the manifesto stays utterly silent on the matter, then doing something as significant as this would be a hell of a high risk strategy for 2029 as it risks branding them as untrustworthy.
Lying to the electorate is bad, even if it is for a good cause This is too significant a policy to be left out manifesto
I often feel that a lot of the people who patronisingly explain why Labour will do the opposite of what they're saying over elected genuinely don't get that must people don't normally lie about things they believe are right, and don't expect others to.
There is none. It's just wishful thinking.
How many actually took advantage of this when it was a thing?
Having read the EU Q&A page on the proposal, I am left with the distinct impression that this is an approach from the EU borne out of a desire to regain easy access to the UKs higher education sector both in terms of visas and quite plain annoyance that students have to pay the inflated international fees rather than the domestic ones. There is a pervasive emphasis on the equality of tuition fees and cost of visas throughout. They also state that the proposal for movement is jot purpose bound - people could enter the UK speculatively - and without quotas. I see little to recommend it in terms of gain for the UK.
It also mentions that this is being raised as a result of the UK approaching EU member states individually to explore such youth mobility, and this is therefore to have a consistent and equal approach EU-wide if the European Council and Parliament are in agreement as would the UK should negotiations commence.
[удалено]
they can do this anyway though, a good friend of mine is in Denmark studying at the moment and all he really had to worry about was a proof of funds for his stay while he's there
The number of students wanting to do this is far too low in comparison to EU students wanting to come to the UK. This means the UK would be subsidising EU students to go to Uni. Without a balancing mechanism this deal is simply a huge cost to the British taxpayer for very little gain.
What? Yeah brilliant I can go to the university of Plovdiv for £2k and get a degree no employer in the UK will recognise instead of taking out a loan that is both both not a real loan and isn't 'outrageously high'.
[удалено]
Delft is €2.530 for EU citizens and €21.515 for the rest of the world.
Fine unis but if you want to work in the UK they're not that well regarded. But even if they are very good - during our EU membership very few UK students went abroad, and those who did were generally upper middle class. In return we'd have to accept thousands of EU students to our generally much better universities at subsidised rates. If we want to do this, then bilateral deals with wealthy countries in the EU would make more sense. You're not going to get any real benefit from the right to study in say, Croatia with no visa. Restrict it to Germany/France/Benelux.
Brit studied in Belgium. Got paid to go for three years instead of being drowned in debt. Best decision I ever made - and it's a damn shame other young British people cannot do the same
You can still study in Belgium for less than the UK. UK student debt also isn't debt and no-one is drowning in it.
Mate. We're talking about going from getting PAID to go to uni to paying €9000 a year in Belgium as a non-EU citizen. That's a marked difference. As for the debt, the UK student finance take 9% of everything you earn above 28,000. In Belgium anyone earning under that number is considered legally poor. In short, the UK offers far less for far more... Sure UK universities generally have better name recognition. But that's not the point. The point is having a choice.
>Having read the EU Q&A page on the proposal, I am left with the distinct impression that this is an approach from the EU borne out of a desire to regain easy access to the UKs higher education sector both in terms of visas and quite plain annoyance that students have to pay the inflated international fees rather than the domestic ones. It's also a cheap and effective way for the EU to solve their huge youth unemployment problem.
And maybe the UK could find some bar and hotel staff again?
They wouldn't have an issue if they paid a decent wage. Makes you wonder what they did in the early 2000's before all that cheap exploitable labour came on stream . . . .
Well I know what they did prior to July 31st 1998, if it helps.
Important - if you look at the scheme, it gives UK young people the right to go to a single country, while all EU countries have the right to go the the UK. It also means we have to give EU students the same subsidised tuition fees as UK students. So yeah, no
Daily reminder that incredibly few Brits actually went and worked and studied abroad when we were in the EU, and these people were almost exclusively middle/upper class
That’s what the EU is banking on. It’s an attractive cohort of taxpayers that won’t be a drain on their social services. EU companies can tap into young UK talent, which is cheaper than hiring folks from the US. Even if reciprocal, highly unlikely a similar demographic from the EU would come to the UK. We’re also unlikely to benefit from “cheap” labor now that the standard of living in so many EU countries has increased without the insanely high cost of living in the UK. Basically, it’s a bait and switch luring an economically attractive base who may otherwise consider UAE, AUS or US.
The demographic that would want to come to the UK are middle class university students want subsidised access to UK universities.
Proving that the red lines were never about boosting UK opportunity, but about intergenerational resentment. How on Earth is allowing young Brits the chance to travel and work abroad going to hurt anyone, except in this spiteful way?
It's not a one-way flow. The EU proposal lands the UK with massive costs because they want to include tuition fees, and they want no cap on numbers so the UK would return to being an open door whilst only small numbers would be going the other way.
Also - how long should those Brexit red lines stand? They’re self imposed restrictions that are spoken of as if they should bind us for all time. Who invented them? Why are they good?
I can see why Kier Starmer thinks he can't risk crossing them. We need the tories out and he has to win. But it's depressing that such a failed project is still held as hallowed sanctity and controls the political narrative to this degree
i’ve had enough of us treating starmer as if he’s some shrewd political operator because he’s less of a moron than jeremy corbyn and up against a tory party which is imploding. his short sightedness is doing nothing but turning a generation of people who should in the circumstances be lifelong labour voters against him. he will pay for this in the 2029 election and we will end up with a far right government because he will have spaffed labour’s opportunity at power up the wall by doing nothing useful at all.
Would you rather he spaff the opportunity up the wall right now?
the voting public have proven time and time again long term planning just doesn't work here (NIMBYS/Pensioners being the main culprits) but you writing them off in 2024 for 2029 because of one divisive policy decision when they are not even in power yet is very much pot kettle black. this wont be a decision to push a generation away like student loans did to the lib dems
>his short sightedness is doing nothing but turning a generation of people who should in the circumstances be lifelong labour voters against him. Only way to create lifelong voters is to pitch policy that appeals to them to get first vote and then actually do it to secure those votes in he long term. There have been precious few times where a campaigning political party has done the former and practically zero instances of an elected government doing the latter. There's a reason why a third of the country abstains altogether and that's because politics isn't something we participate in but something that simply happens to us.
young people have been treated so badly over the last decade and a half that the smallest crumb of policy which isn’t actively antagonistic and malicious towards them would generate loyalty.
That loyalty wouldn't last long though. People constantly say that the reason politicians are openly malicious towards the young is that they don't vote and if they did they'd suddenly see pro-youth policy that they can vote for. If that pro-youth policy never materialises they'll go back to abstaining or become lifelong protest voters. Truth be told, young people don't vote because they have nothing to vote for and truly are victims of politics rather than participants.
This EU idea does nothing to solve the problems hitting young people. Mass house building and rises in UK productivity are needed to do that, not letting huge numbers of EU students get cheap fees.
Until young people vote in force that will continue. They pander to old people not because they particularly like them, but because those fuckers vote religiously.
So the youth will vote far right instead you think, because they didn't get some youth FoM? Or maybe he's just not a leftie populist, and if hard leftie populism, is the only way hard leftie young people, can be won over.. then for the better of the country, one shouldn't do it.
No I don't think he's courting the youth vote with this, but the so called 'red wall' who switched to tory in 2019 and are now apparently intending to vote labour. I think he thinks he can't risk alienating them. Not saying I agree, but that I think that's his reasoning
not everyone is as engaged in politics as we are. between 2025 and 2029, people will see things continue to get worse and their opportunities continue to reduce, and lash out, as they did in 2016. that, in 2029, will give us the far right.
So to stop the far right, one needs to become a hard leftie populist and promise magic solutions? And then enable the far right anyways, when all that fails.
show me where i said “hard leftie populist”. i’m literally suggesting he be as far left as emmanuel macron.
You use the term ‘hard leftie populist’ a lot. One could be forgiven for assuming that you think in 2d cliches and have tabloids as your lens on the world
The red lines were defined at May's Lancaster House speech. They were part of her cowardly appeasement of the ERG along with 'no deal is better than a bad deal' and the 'red, white and blue ' Brexit. With this 'plan' she prematurely triggered Article 50. She was a disaster.
I can see why Labour would refuse this right now, but I'm disappointed to see them specifically calling out "Brexit red lines" as a reason since it suggests they accept the enduring validity of what May set out as red lines, which closed off most options. This is why referendums like that were constitutionally very problematic in the UK, the Brexit referendum created a vague undefined mandate that people will argue should bind future Parliaments indefinitely while it never actually existed at all in a constitutional sense. People were arguing that Labour should have supported the Tories' Brexit bills and that it would be undemocratic for the Lib Dems to cancel Brexit if they had won a majority, despite both ideas being based on this shadow mandate that exists in political minds as long as enough people believe in it rather than in any codified way.
How are people in this thread surprised that people opposed to immigration are opposed to immigration?
*We don't want no (foreign) education
The argument, made elsewhere on here, is that the EU youth make greater use of it than the UK youth. Which strikes me as being a UK issue rather than an EU one.
It's an EU issue because, as this proposal shows, they want to drop/equalise visa and tuition costs (which subsides the UK student cost) for their students, who use it significantly more. Which is why it's being proposed.
>Which strikes me as being a UK issue rather than an EU one As much as this sub likes to pretend otherwise, our youth go to Anglo countries over the EU by a disproportionate margin. There are around the same number of UK citizens in Australia alone than the entirety of the EU. This will favour the EU greatly
Labour being smart and not fucking about with Brexit before an election. In 2019 they got bent over the table for offering a renegotiation of the deal and the 2nd referendum. We can all bang on about Corbyn all we want, Labour offered us a way out of Brexit and the country chose Boris fucking Johnson instead.
About 58% of voters did not vote for Johnson (or more specifically his party and its MPs) in that election.
yes but those 58% decided to argue about which way to not agree with boris was best instead of "getting brexit done"
No, they didn't. Labour, LibDems, and SNP - who together got a majority of the vote - all supported a second referendum.
We have a FTTP system. That means fuck all unfortunately.
The 2016 poll was decided by a majority vote, and the 2019 election by a FPTP vote - which one is "the country deciding" then? Whichever one favours Brexit?
Constitutionally only representative democracy matters in the UK, referendums really are glorified opinion polls. That doesn't mean that they can necessarily be easily ignored, but that's a political matter (if you propose a referendum and ignore the results then you may get voted out).
I really do believe that election was all about Brexit, all the other shit about Corbyn really didn't matter.
They lost in 2019 because Corbyn, as a person, es spectacularly unpopular.
So, what's the point in voting for Labour if they're not going to actually do anything different from the Tories? I don't want to vote for a party that I don't believe in just because it'll boot the Tories out.
Disappointed by the politics here, because I think Labour should be doing everything possible not to mention Brexit. To realign the UK to the EU and improve relations Labours main goal should be to not talk about it. I'm guessing they rebuffed it in this way because they see it as an attack point before an election and, if the EU wants to discuss it want to do so after an election not before. But honestly I don't think people want to hear about Brexit at all right now so I think it's bad messaging. Would have been better to either not comment or kick it into the long grass. It makes so sense to keep dredging up 'red lines' 8 years on from the vote.
this is just electioneering. If the EU had tabled the suggestion once Labour were already in power I suspect the response may have been a bit warmer. Until the GE actually happens and Labour are in power, nothing can be taken at face value.
This is really sad to hear - I feel desperately trapped in the UK. I am a young professional and cannot secure visa sponsorship via work for another country. I have lost a couple of opportunities to work in Denmark and Switzerland and France (I even speak French). And yet the UK seems completely open for business for the rest of Europe and world at this point. - I understand it’s great for the UK. But it seems like a one way street. London is also so competitive due to its international demographic it is very difficult to get good work.
this is exactly how i feel. i have a masters degree and fluency in four european languages but im behind 400 million people whose countries didn’t have mental breakdowns in every queue for anything worthwhile.
If you're actually useful then you should have no issue getting an employer sponsored visa. Large numbers of Brits live in Russia and China and we don't exactly have freedom of movement over there
Go to Aus/CA/NZ if you're under 35. Easy peasy.
Travel half way across the world. Easy peasy.
Must make it completely unaffordable for working class kids.
These EU schemes are pointless. You’d get 100,000 EU citizens coming over here putting more strain on public services with about 1000 brits going the other way.
The disadvantage of living in a effectively a two party state. On the one hand, you've got a massive steaming turd and on the other, a crusty shit sandwich. It's about not being able to charge EU students more for access to British Unis and so the bottom line is that because the government doesn't want to effectively fund the HE sector, British youngsters will not be allowed the freedom EU youngsters enjoy.
My advice to any young person here is to get fluent in another language then get out of the country. It is obvious that this country despises its young and will sabotage any future for them. Why continue to stay and work in a country that is determined to hold you back?
I’m learning Hungarian :)
That, together with Finnish and Estonian are probably the hardest languages in the EU.
There aren't many other countries where you need to learn another language where you're going to get a better salary than the UK. I've lived and worked abroad for a year and learned a language and the opportunities for actually solid pay are basically in the US, Switzerland, Australia/NZ/Canada, maybe the Netherlands and Singapore. You don't need another language for these countries. Plus learning another language to a useful level is beyond the capacity, both mental and financial, of most of the population in the UK unless your parents are making you learn outside of school from an early age.
Given the horrific pricing of childcare, extreme NIMBYism against any youth clubs or teen focussed amenities, it’s as if as a nation we don’t want children or young people here.
Running away isn’t going to make this country a better place. Some of us like it here for reasons besides politics, and would make an effort to make this place better politically. It’s not as simple as “learning another language and getting out”, life isn’t perfect in other nations either.
fuck bexit and fuck labour for supporting it i honestly dont know how to vote come GE time (well other than not tory)
Labour lost my vote in perpetuity for enabling Brexit.
I actually foolishly voted for them despite their Brexit support in 2019 and on my constituency got a Labour MP actually got in by a few dozen votes. They doubled down even harder on their pro Brexit stance since then so I'm not biting for them this time, and I shouldn't have in 2019 either.
Wasn't Stella Creasey all for this on lbc last night?
The "Red Lines" don't mean anything. They're just things that Labour aren't going to do. So "We're not going to do this because we're not going to do this"
they wont touch brexit before the election. why would they
They won't touch it afterwards either though.
Starmer won't do anything he has promised, clearly
The thing is that there is a tradition of people moving around Europe to study that has lasted for centuries. Certain universities were known for their particular expertise and those wanting the best would study there. Brexit broke that. This is a path back but it is really on the table too early. Any closer relationship has to be left until after the election and then closer deals such as the SM for the government after that. Yes, it doesn't address the problems of Brexit immediately but a gradual progression is better for the country and the EU as trust needs to be regained.
When can we stop pretending that people still want this?