Somehow I missed this…. Did you know that just a few months ago, the EU offered Brits aged 18-30 freedom of movement?
Downing Street rejected it without even discussing in Parliament.
by joefife
Somehow I missed this…. Did you know that just a few months ago, the EU offered Brits aged 18-30 freedom of movement?
Downing Street rejected it without even discussing in Parliament.
by joefife
10 comments
The LibDems have it in their manifesto to do it
We should be trying to get it back for all, not just young people.
The SNP have no credible immigration policy for an independent Scotland either. The Paul McCartney model isn’t acceptable and as we’ve seen elsewhere, people will suffer for it, plus that shit show in Glasgow shows fine well that the SNP wouldn’t ever consider anyone for deportation and have rallied the troops to be against the idea. So how in the hell are they going to get rid of people who take the piss and don’t follow due process?
Unfortunately, Labour also rejected it
The EU offers things like this knowing full well they will be rejected, and vice versa. It’s a bit of a ludicrous arrangement when you think about it.
Free movement for young people is not enough and it is far more beneficial to the EU than it is for us.
Yeah what happened was:
1. The UK approached specific EU countries to discuss a freedom of movement type situation only with those countries.
2. The EU were not happy because in their view you can’t cherry pick. So they offered this.
3. The UK gov immediately dismissed it – probably because it would look too similar to moving back towards the single market/rejoining to the people that are somehow still hardline Brexiters.
4. It was divisive pretty much everywhere I saw it mentioned online. A lot of over 30s were upset at the 30 cut off arguing it was ageism etc, lot of young people were excited at the prospect and arguing they never had a say about leaving the EU so it would be unfair to deny them this and pro Brexit people were getting upset because they voted leave to stop all of this.
Which I think kinda shows just how long the road back to single market, EEA or EU membership is going to be for the UK unfortunately.
Can’t have our youngest and brightest escaping
Cunts
So it’s not free movement as it was before, but was time limited and (and according to the BBC) EU members would be allowed to choose whether or not to accept British people under the deal.
This also comes after the UK approached individual members of the EU for a bilateral agreement, so it seems like a knee jerk reaction to that.
Also from the Q&A on the EU commissions website it seems the EU deal seems largely targeted at making it easier for EU citizens to access UK higher educations institutions with it being 4 years (form the sounds of it the UK was proposing 2 year stay periods) and specifically mentioning how EU citizens have to pay the overseas fee now in the UK, and saying “the envisioned deal would ensure equal treatment for EU and UK students in regards to tuition” pretty much saying EU students would pay the same fee as UK nationals for UK universities.
And considering how higher education is a a major point of soft power, especially for the UK with how many top class universities we have, that’s a major thing to give up and give easier access to for a few hundred million people vs. the rest of the world, for seemingly not a lot considering UK students don’t generally have the same financially restriction when accessing EU universities.