Every time a government tries to hide its cards, it runs the risk that the lack of coordination will lead one of its members to screw up. The British Secretary of State for European Affairs, Nick Thomas-Symonds, who was appearing before a House of Lords committee at the end of 2024, suggested there for the first time that Downing Street would be willing to consider a Youth Mobility Scheme (with permits limited to work or study), an objective set last May by the European Commission and desired by countries as powerful as Germany.
Until then, London had resisted discussing that possibility.
“It must be the EU that defines its proposals and puts them on the table. It will depend a lot on what they mean when they talk about youth mobility,” admitted Thomas-Symonds with a directness that the Prime Minister’s office immediately converted into recklessness. “I think the minister has made it clear that we will never return to the freedom of movement of people from the EU,” a spokesman for Keir Starmer said a few hours later. “And we have already clearly stated that we are not even considering a Youth Mobility Scheme,” he said.
Starmer’s vagaries have created uncertainty in Brussels. The new Labor prime minister began his mandate with the commitment, which he kept repeating in every meeting with his counterparts on the continent, torestart relations with Europe that were very deteriorated by previous conservative governments, determined to use Brexit as a permanent weapon against the EU.
And yet, despite being aware that the recovery of a space of freedom for young workers and students on both sides of the English Channel would help boost the long-awaited economic growth in the United Kingdom, the Starmer Government jumps on the defensive every time the issue arises.
“They are clearly suspicious of anything that could sound like the recovery of the freedom of movement of people, which continues to be a red line for many of those who voted in favor of Brexit. And that’s where caution is misplaced. Because a Youth Mobility Scheme does not mean freedom of movement. It is a reciprocal and controlled agreement, which establishes clear limits regarding the age, duration and rights of those who take advantage of the program,” explains Monika Brusenbauch, professor at the Department of International Relations and European Studies at Masaryk University and professor visitor to Aston University, Birmingham.
Political strategy
A recent survey by the European Center for Foreign Affairs was surprising, indicating that a majority of Britons who voted in 2016 in favor of Brexit (54%) would be willing to accept again the freedom of movement of citizens in exchange for greater access to the EU internal market for the United Kingdom.
Several previous surveys had already made it clear that youth mobility is one of the issues that generates the most support among voters on the left and right.
The European Commission, which proposed work or study permits of up to four years for those under 30, hoped that the new Labor Government would welcome the initiative.
Starmer, however, had to face an explosive wave of street violence charged with xenophobia as soon as he began his mandate. And during his first months in office it was known that the net number of immigrants who entered the United Kingdom in 2023 was more than 900,000, well above the 700,000 that had already agitated the electorate when the provisional figures were announced.
“It is clear that there are different types of migration, and that youth mobility presents a more positive aspect. But there is still a lot of concern. It is a very delicate issue for many deputies, one that the voters of their electoral constituencies raise with them again and again. It is an area in which the Starmer Government feels vulnerable to possible attacks from the right,” Ed Turner, professor at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Aston University and the Aston Center for Europe, told Morning Express.
And the fear would not come, some experts point out, only from the British right. “I think there is also an ideological reason. There are people in the Labor Party, in high positions, who are worried because they won the elections on July 4 thanks to a type of voter incorrect. They came to power thanks to the middle-class citizens of the big cities, but they did not manage to win back the minds and hearts of the working class that until now had supported them,” says Catherine Barnard, professor of Labor and European Union Law at the Cambridge University.
But Starmer’s fears are joined by his political calculations. The Labor Government, focused on managing the adverse reactions caused by its first budget, has postponed the start of any negotiations with the EU until the first quarter of 2025. Its priority is to strengthen cooperation in security and defense. Next, introduce improvements to the conditions of the trade agreement that established the post-Brexit rules.
“They know that they have a negotiating asset. The United Kingdom is going to have certain demands, in this new attempt to restart relations with the EU, and is aware that [el Esquema de Movilidad Juvenil] It is something that Brussels wants in return. I am convinced that some agreement will finally be reached on this matter, but I believe that there will be more surrenders and concessions. Why waste one of your best cards when negotiations haven’t started yet?” Turner asks.
That could certainly be Starmer’s hidden strategy. But what was that of the European Commission? The EU, focused on its own problems, had until now shown little appetite to reopen the Brexit folder and start new, and possibly tortuous, talks with the United Kingdom.
“It was a clear attempt to avoid any bilateral agreement between London and another European capital, because the truth is that the bulk of this matter is really a state competence. EU Member States can close pacts with a third country on migration issues. And Brussels was concerned that this whole matter would end up going unilaterally,” says Turner.
That is to say, the European Commission, which did not even have permission from the Council to begin negotiating, wanted to be the one to coordinate, if achieved, the first exercise that, in some way, would begin to undo the consequences of Brexit.
The resistance of universities
Finally, along with the suspicion that any immigration issue arouses in British politics, there is a first-order economic issue. For more than 10 years, public universities in the United Kingdom could not charge more than 9,250 pounds (about 11,160 euros) for annual tuition from British students or students with a residence permit in the country. Starting next year, the Starmer Government has raised that limit to 9,535 pounds (about 11,500 euros).
Brexit stopped short the arrival of EU students to the United Kingdom. In return, students from Asia and Africa increased. The universities have charged them annual tuition fees of between 23,000 and 30,000 pounds (27,700-36,200 euros approx.), something that has allowed them to stop a clearly deteriorating financial situation.
Opening the doors again to EU students – by making tuition cheaper for EU students – would have an impact on immigration. “Unfortunately, for universities, [el Esquema de Movilidad Juvenil] It is and is not an immigration issue. The statistics of foreign students are incorporated into the general immigration data, because the criterion for adding them is having resided in the country for more than a year, something that is inevitable for a university student,” says Professor Barnard.
Like so many other issues arising from Brexit, practical solutions, which everyone is able to see, are paralyzed by political fears. And Starmer cannot avoid the constant vision of the threatening specter of populism in the face of anything that involves opening the doors of the United Kingdom.
