London Mayor Sadiq Khan wants the UK to strike a new deal with the European Union so that young people in England can move to the EU to live, study and work there without any barriers as they did before Brexit, Schengen Visa Info reports.
Mayor Khan has shared his ideas with the Observer, which the Guardian believes could be one of the most pro-European proposals from a senior Labour politician since the 2016 referendum to leave the EU.
Khan said a deal could be reached through a “youth mobility” agreement with EU member states or changes to post-Brexit labour visa rules. Through the agreement or changes, Khan wants to make sure that young people in the UK have the opportunity to study, travel and fill vacancies in key sectors in EU countries. The Mayor of London said:
The government’s hard Brexit has done damage right across London and it is young people who have been hardest hit in so many ways. Not only is it more difficult for young people to move abroad for work, but the government’s wrong-headed decision to leave the Erasmus scheme has made it much harder for students to study abroad too.
In December 2023, the Mayor signed a petition for the UK to rejoin the Erasmus programme, which was launched by the UK branch of the European Movement. A UK Department for Education report published on 3 January found that universities and colleges had found it difficult to complete applications for the Turing Scheme, which was supposed to replace Erasmus.
As a result, student funding was often received late. Only 20,000 people were able to benefit from the programme, while the government had planned to allocate 35,000. The scheme itself was deemed inadequate.
Mayor Khan’s proposal was criticised by many UK politicians, including Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden. He said:
It’s hardly surprising Sadiq Khan wants to drag us back into the EU given Sir Keir Starmer spent years trying to block Brexit then overturn the largest democratic vote in British history – and now he’s plotting to rip up our new relationship with the EU and even drag us back into the EU by ‘stealth’ with plans to hand millions of EU nationals the vote.
Many believe Khan is using the issue as part of his campaign to seek a third term as mayor of the UK capital in the May 2024 mayoral election. However, this is not the first time Khan has made such a proposal: in April 2023, he called on the UK government to ease post-Brexit visa rules that prevent EU citizens from visiting London for tourism, work and study.
While there has yet to be any reaction from the EU to the proposal, German Ambassador to London Miguel Berger told German Press a few weeks ago that his country was already testing a similar agreement that would allow people aged between 18 and 35 to live and work in the UK for up to two years.
