Britain’s EU relations minister has described plans to create a cross-channel youth mobility scheme as a “fantastic opportunity”, in a sign of the government’s growing confidence in rebuilding ties with Europe.
Nick Thomas-Symonds said details of the scheme would be subject to negotiation but suggested it could be extensive and would offer “great opportunities for Brits to go overseas to experience different cultures”.
“Numbers will be in the context of the schemes we already have,” he said in a speech on Wednesday. Britain has 13 similar programmes in place with countries including Australia, Canada and Japan, with a total cap of more than 80,000 people.
“I’m very excited about the youth experience scheme,” he added. “It’s a fantastic opportunity.”
Thomas-Symonds’ speech reflects a belief in government that voters are warming to the idea of closer UK-EU ties nine years after the Brexit vote, and that they draw a sharp distinction between irregular migration and a capped “youth experience scheme”.
In a speech hosted by Lord Michael Gove, editor of The Spectator magazine, the minister also gave a full-throated defence of Britain deploying its right as a “sovereign nation” to align with Brussels’ rules to remove trade barriers.
“Some will hysterically cry treason,” said Thomas-Symonds, alluding to negotiations with Brussels over the details of the UK-EU deal signed in May. “Some will say we’re surrendering sovereignty or freedoms, but that is nonsense.”
While the Conservatives have made such claims — shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said the government was guilty of “surrender” to Brussels — Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has been much more circumspect.
Farage was on holiday in May when Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer sealed his “reset” with the EU and has not returned to the fray on Brexit this week or responded directly to Thomas-Symonds, preferring to focus on immigration.
Instead, Reform issued a statement from a spokesperson that said: “Cosying up to the EU and leaving us entangled in reams of retained EU law which Kemi Badenoch failed to scrap will not resuscitate Britain’s struggling economy.”
Polls suggest the British public now regrets the 2016 Brexit vote. A YouGov poll in June found that 56 per cent thought Britain was wrong to leave the EU and only 31 per cent thought it was the right decision.
Thomas-Symonds cited a YouGov survey for Abta, a travel association, which found that 76 per cent of Britons supported the kind of temporary scheme proposed by the EU and UK to allow young people to work and study abroad.
His speech was an attempt to shape the political debate ahead of talks with Brussels to flesh out the bilateral “common understanding” reached in May. The discussions will cover youth mobility, food and drink trade, defence, energy co-operation and other areas.
Gaps remain between both sides over the scope of any youth mobility agreement. Thomas-Symonds said the negotiations would be “tough” and that he did not expect any deal to remove barriers to food and drink trade to apply until 2027, following the conclusion of talks and legislation in parliament.
David Henig, a trade expert at the ECIPE think-tank, said Britain would struggle to secure some “carve-outs” in any deal to align the UK with Brussels’ rules, including efforts by the government to protect a liberal regime on agricultural gene editing or to ban imports of foie gras.
For industries outside the energy and food and drink sectors, the “reset” offers “limited” economic benefits, according to the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, with most of the other trade frictions caused by leaving the EU single market unaddressed.
The government has estimated the “reset” could deliver a 0.3 per cent boost to UK GDP by 2040 — less than one-tenth of the 4 per cent long-run hit from Brexit estimated by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog.
Meanwhile, British diplomatic officials said Dame Caroline Wilson, UK ambassador to China between 2020 and this summer, was expected to become the UK’s ambassador to the EU next year.
Wilson — who has previously worked in Brussels and is fluent in Mandarin, French, German and Russian — would play a key role in developing ties between London and the bloc.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said ambassadorial appointments would be announced “in the usual way”.