Britons aged 18 to 30 can apply for visas to live and work for a limited time in 13 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as part of reciprocal youth mobility schemes. They are a good opportunity for some young people to broaden their horizons and experience living abroad, and for cultural exchange. But there is no such scheme in place with countries across Europe; after Britain left the EU in 2016 and British citizens lost their right to free movement across its member states, any prospect of youth mobility disappeared with it.
There are clear signs that the EU wants to change that. The European Commission has drafted proposals for a UK-EU youth mobility scheme that would enable UK and EU citizens aged 18 to 30 to travel to the EU or the UK respectively to live there for up to four years for any purpose including work, travel or study, so long as they have health insurance and can prove they have the means to support themselves. The commission has also proposed that UK and EU students should be treated as domestic students in the EU and UK respectively. There are many in Brussels who see agreement to at least some form of youth mobility scheme as a precursor to any Labour reset of relations with the EU.
Keir Starmer has, so far, appeared to rule out any such scheme publicly, saying simply that there will be no return to free movement, despite the fact that the proposed time limitations mean it would be far from this. It also enjoys popular support: six in 10 voters think it is a good idea, and just one in 10 a bad idea, and only 14% said that if Labour were to sign up to a European youth mobility scheme they would view the government a bit or much less favourably as a result.
This bodes worryingly for Labour’s broader approach to UK-EU relations. Starmer has made no secret of his desire to “reset” the government’s relationship with the EU. That is positive. But the detail of what Labour says it would like to achieve – to negotiate a veterinary agreement, to reduce barriers to UK musicians touring across the EU and to reach agreement on a mutual recognition deal on professional qualifications – runs into two problems, according to the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe. First, these measures are so piecemeal that they would be of limited economic benefit; and second, even despite that, they will be tough to negotiate.
Labour is absolutely right to look to improving trade relations with the EU as a way to boost Britain’s laggard growth. Erecting trade barriers with our closest and largest trading partner has unquestionably had a depressive impact on growth; estimates suggest that Brexit has reduced GDP by between 2% and 4% a year. This includes impacts on our trade with the rest of the world, which has dropped off partly as a result of de-integration with European supply chains – the UK’s overall openness to trade has fallen – and on business investment. Labour urgently needs to achieve economic growth, and looking to ameliorate the worst impacts of Brexit makes sense.
But its approach to the youth mobility scheme suggests it remains stuck in the parochial and unrealistic mindset that dominated all sides of British politics during and after Brexit. Namely, that the relationship with the EU is purely instrumental, that Britain has a series of requests in relation to improving the terms of that relationship, and the EU can take it or leave it.
But the fact of the matter is that the UK’s negotiating position has got significantly weaker since we left. We are no longer a powerful member state, but a much smaller neighbour.
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The EU’s political focus is no longer Brexit; it has moved on to the crises of recent years including Ukraine, Covid and irregular migration. It is not in the EU’s interest to spend a lot of time negotiating incremental changes in the Brexit settlement that deliver marginal economic benefits to both parties. If the UK wants a substantive shift in economic relations, it is likely to have to propose something more meaningful and comprehensive, such as a new customs union arrangement with the EU, which would probably take years to negotiate; the advantage is that such an arrangement could also bring significant benefits to trade, unlike the narrow negotiating objectives Labour has currently adopted.
Starmer clearly remains stymied by the fear that moving the UK economically but not politically closer to Europe could undermine trust with voters. He would do well to remember that the salience of Brexit has dropped off a cliff in recent years – just 11% of voters cite Brexit as one of the most important issues facing the country, compared with 73% in 2019, and 58% of people said they would vote to rejoin the EU in May if the vote were held again, compared with 42% who said they would vote to stay out.
Labour will face a far bigger problem with voters if the growth it has promised fails to materialise. It should not only embrace the idea of a youth mobility scheme. There is no time to waste: given how long it will inevitably take to negotiate a move towards meaningful economic cooperation, it must start the conversation now.