Free movement is still a red line for Britain
If there is a thought calculated to strike fear into the hearts of the electorate, it is surely that of Sir Keir Starmer attempting to enter into complex negotiations with the European Union.
Sir Keir, whose foreign policy successes to date have involved attempting to pay Mauritius several billion pounds to take the strategically vital Chagos Islands off our hands and being manoeuvred into signing a Commonwealth communique noting “calls for discussions on reparatory justice”, now appears set to turn his talents to the issue of migration with the bloc.
High up on the Prime Minister’s wishlist are a security deal with the potential for joint procurement contracts, deals on mutual recognition of professional qualifications, and measures to reduce the paperwork involved in the trade of agricultural products.
In exchange, the most significant of the demands emerging from Brussels appears to be an easing of Britain’s border constraints, including what looks suspiciously like a rebranded version of the youth mobility scheme described by some as “free movement” for young people.
The EU is apparently insistent that students from the bloc pay the domestic tuition fee of £9,545 per year to study at British universities, as opposed to the overseas fees of up to £18,000 a year. Given that universities made an average loss of £2,500 on each home student educated in 2023, this could prove a fiscal sticking point.
This is particularly so given the bloc’s other reported demand of scrapping the visa fee of £298 and the £1,035 NHS surcharge for participants in any youth scheme.
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said that signing up to a full-fledged youth mobility scheme would be the wrong approach for Britain, given the need to “bring net migration down”, but it appears that the Government is open to re-entering the Erasmus exchange programme and offering fixed term visas for young EU nationals.
This is still likely to be controversial, given the current uproar over migration, and the potential cutting of fiscal contributions for those arriving. While short-term flows of migrants from the EU are likely to be preferable to the long-term residency of low-skilled workers coming in under the current immigration system, anything that resembles the uncontrolled free movement of yesteryear should still be a red line for this country. We can only hope that it will also prove to be one for Sir Keir.