EU youth mobility scheme exposes Labour’s immigration angst
The government will not back it, the government will back it. It will grow the economy, it will make Brits poorer. It will reverse Brexit, it doesn’t bring us close enough to the European Union. It is not a youth mobility scheme, it’s a ‘youth experience’ scheme.
Labour’s hokey-cokey dance around the possible introduction of a EU youth mobility scheme began even before Keir Starmer got into Downing Street. Last year, the party’s electoral campaign featured London Mayor Sadiq Khan backing the scheme even while the manifesto said “no plans” had been set out.
But now, crunch time is dawning on Labour as the UK prepares to host a summit with the bloc in mid-May, in which an agreement is widely expected.
Brussels, for one, has been unequivocal about its intention to implement such a scheme.
“The envisaged agreement would provide for limited-in-time mobility, subject to the fulfilment of conditions to be checked before the mobility can take place,” the EU Commission said in April last year.
“It is not about conferring to young UK nationals the benefits of the fundamental freedom of movement enjoyed by EU citizens.”
After much toing-and-froing, a breakthrough seemed imminent after reports surfaced that home secretary Yvette Cooper would accept a limited version of a deal under which equal numbers of Brits aged 18 to 35 leave the UK as those coming from Europe into Britain.
German ambassador to the UK Miguel Buerger said on Friday that a possible agreement, which would allow young Brits to work abroad and “learn a language”, was at an advanced stage.
And yet, on the same morning, environment secretary Steve Reed told Times Radio that Labour were standing firm on their manifesto not to open plans on such a scheme.
“We’re not going to breach what we put in the manifesto. There won’t be any return to freedom of movement. We were crystal clear about that in the manifesto during the general election and it remains the position today.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, meanwhile, provided the greatest indication yet that some arrangement will be made, telling The Sunday Times she wanted to allow young Brits to work and travel in Europe.
Youth mobility schemes are already in place with the likes of Canada, New Zealand and South Korea, among other nations.
Australians accounted for around half of some 300,000 individuals who took up the special visa between 2008 and 2024, Home Office data shows.
A Home Office source reportedly said that Cooper’s opposition to the scheme should be seen through the lens of her commitment to lowering net migration. But just 23,000 people arrived in the UK on a youth mobility visa in 2023 compared to overall net migration of 600,000 that year.
Youth mobility would ‘establish soft power’
UK businesses largely support the plans while economists at the Migration Advisory Committee, an independent panel that is tasked with advising the government on immigration policy, have said that the scheme could boost the UK’s fledgling hospitality sector. The British Chambers of Commerce separately described the lack of a youth mobility scheme in the UK’s 2020 Brexit deal with the EU as a “serious omission”.
Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) chief executive Neil Carberry said that an agreement with the EU would allow major banks and professional services in London offering graduate schemes to attract better talent.
“I think one of the big economic and market benefits of a youth mobility scheme for the UK is just to make it easier for young professional schemes to be based here,” he told CityAM.
“Of course, that does two things. It embeds major companies based in London, underpinning the UK position as a financial services and professional services leader with the second biggest exposure of professional services in the world.
“And it establishes some soft power, because the more future leaders that you have who have some links to Britain, the better that is for trade over the long term.”
Dozens of Labour backbenchers have thrown their weight behind the plans, sending a letter to Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds calling for the UK to “create new opportunities for British young people”.
“This is a moment of opportunity for all who want to see a closer relationship between the UK and the EU and that includes millions of voters who put their confidence in Labour last year,” Andrew Lewin, a Labour MP coordinating the letter, told CityAM.
“We have a mandate for change and a chance to strike a deal to reduce the burdens on business.”
Politicians ‘cant’ be trusted’
A youth mobility scheme is unlikely to boost GDP much in the short term. The scheme is more of an olive branch to the EU amid the UK government’s push to smooth trade ties post-Brexit than a tactic to strengthen Labour’s electoral support. The optics of any plan that loosens immigration policy are far from ideal.
In a media round on Friday, shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith caricatured proposals for a youth mobility scheme as he questioned whether there would be “orderly queues at Dover like some sort of nightclub” as a result of the scheme.
While the conflation between small boat crossings and a legal migration scheme supported by business highlighted the tensions around immigration in the UK, one other remark Griffith made exposed the central problem ministers, including Cooper, face: “No politician is trusted on [immigration] now.”
Whatever the issues and effects of immigration policy during the 21st century may be, Labour are walking a tightrope.
Economists too are facing more criticism over its forecasts analysing the impacts of immigration on growth. Shadow home secretary Robert Jenrick has led calls for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the fiscal watchdog, to reconsider its growth estimations as he said the independent body was “gaslighting the British public”.
A new report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) spelling out how mass immigration slows down wage growth has also added fuel to the flames on claims that economic policy is not being well thought out.
But Institute of Directors (IoD) trade policy advisor Emma Rowland claimed there was little concern across business leaders that a youth mobility scheme would shorten wage growth.
“It’s not something that we’ve heard concerns about from our members,” she told CityAM. “I think perhaps the wage growth issue is more in relation to the skills of visas, rather than undercutting wages.”
The government’s white paper on immigration is expected within weeks and will likely have more details on skilled as well as graduate visas. An agreement on a youth mobility scheme is set to come sooner.
A YouGov survey in 2024 suggested there was majority support for a youth mobility scheme to be introduced. But immigration policy has never been more delicate.
Whatever the positive impact on UK growth might be, one foot wrong could throw Labour off course and destroy voters’ trust in the government plans to curb immigration.