The new Government has made its priority economic growth. It wants to open up opportunities for young people, for the development of technology and the arts, of agriculture and the hospitality sector. An obvious constraint is a lack of cash and, with frustrating but honourable restraint, it has resolutely avoided extravagant financial commitments.
So why is it apparently rejecting an easy, largely cost-free option which would contribute strongly to all these good outcomes?
A youth mobility scheme with the EU is what I would have expected to see on the government’s wish list in resetting our relationship with our former partners. I thought it might take clever negotiation, as the EU might see it as a reversion to cake-ism, wanting to cherry-pick good things that suited us as we looked at life after Brexit. It didn’t occur to me that they might offer it, and that we might hesitate, let alone reject it.
Why are we doing it? The advantages in the offer are enormous. Young British people wanting to broaden their experiences, make some cash, or improve their languages, used to be able to work casually in French vineyards over a summer, take up jobs teaching English in Prague, do bar work in Spain, or temporary labouring jobs in Germany. Not for the last few years. Work experience is available in New Zealand or Australia. But that involves a large cash outlay and a very long journey.
Our hospitality industry (including prominent supporters of Brexit) is desperate to regain the supply of young EU citizens, wanting to broaden their experience by spending a few seasons working in our pubs, restaurants and hotels.
Read more
Attacking Houthis puts UK into villain combo with Americans
In praise of an unelected House of Lords
Our arts sectors – young music students, bands and other artists, want to be able to tour our neighbours without expensive restrictions and red tape, developing their careers and making contacts and reputations.
Young IT people want to be able to take up offers of work elsewhere as part of the development of their careers and experience.
Clarinettists, bass drummers, coders and programmers all get some of their early opportunities by hanging out in places where they learn of openings at late notice, casually, which they can take up instantly. This works for young Brits in Amsterdam and Berlin. And when it happens with young EU people in Glasgow, Edinburgh or London, our economy, our music scenes and hi-tech sectors get a boost too.
I find our opposition disheartening, and odd. The advantages of accepting seem clear; the disadvantages minimal, if they exist at all. There aren’t implications for wider free movement, or the single market or importing family members. The fact that restoring the student exchange scheme, Erasmus, would cost money that we don’t have, has been mentioned as why we need to reject it.
But, though in my view it would be money well spent, we don’t need to sign up to Erasmus for this scheme if we don’t want, or can’t afford it.
It would be good if our new government could reappraise this, and if some of their many backbenchers as well as MPs from other parties could help ensure that we don’t miss this sensible opening.
George ‘Geordie’ Fergusson is a former diplomat. He was the British High Commissioner to New Zealand and Samoa, governor of the Pitcairn Islands, from 2006 to 2010 and governor of Bermuda from 2012 to 2016.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel