Britain’s new government spent most of the fall bogged down in questions over where it stands on EU demands for a youth mobility scheme — which Brussels sees as essential to the reset. The young Labour administration is worried the idea smells too much like EU migration, a difficult political issue in Britain. It hasn’t ruled the idea out, but the official line is that it has “no plans.” That hasn’t stopped the questions.
“I’ve been clear from the get-go that freedom of movement is a red line for us, and no plans in relation to free movement on any level, but we’re entering into discussions,” Starmer told the Brexit-supporting Sun newspaper when asked about the scheme in the run up to Christmas.
Unlike freedom of movement, a youth mobility program would simply make it easier for British and European youngsters to access time-limited visas to move across the Channel for a few years. The idea polls well, but Labour strategists remain worried.
Despite a careful start to talks and few solid demands, Starmer has already found himself accused of betraying Brexit by Euroskeptics back home. Tory opposition leader Kemi Badenoch used her last parliamentary question before Westminster’s Christmas break to lambast the prime minister for “planning to give away our hard-won Brexit freedoms,” while Euroskeptic newspapers have already characterized a corps of civil servants set up to work on talks as a “surrender squad.”
Meanwhile, the perceived indecision is starting to grate on the other side of the Channel. A recent delegation of members of the European Parliament to the U.K. ended with the chair of Strasbourg’s Committee on Foreign Affairs quoting ’90s girl band the Spice Girls: “Tell us what you want, what you really, really want.” The Parliament’s standing delegation to the U.K. in December also passed a text warning that “concrete commitments” were needed to prevent Starmer’s diplomatic exercise turning into a “reset in name only.”
Europe’s political tides have also conspired against Starmer. The British prime minister spent much of his first six months in office building a close relationship with social democratic German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is now on his way out and widely expected to be replaced by a conservative.
