The PM seems to think embracing youth mobility would make him look soft on migration. Perhaps he should grow a backbone

Illustration: Ellie Foreman-Peck/The Guardian

As Keir Starmer entered the room with Ursula von der Leyen for his first meeting with the European Commission as prime minister on Wednesday, we had a clear picture of what she wanted. This is because the commission is quite good at communicating its wishes and showing its reasoning – or as you could call it, “being normal”.

At the top of her agenda is a youth mobility scheme, a reciprocal arrangement between nations whereby citizens, usually aged 18-30, can work for a period in another country. One EU official said the commission “mainly wants to see if Starmer will engage”. Others have described the issue as “low-hanging fruit” – so uncontroversially mutually beneficial that, as consequential as it might be for individuals, at a societal level it’s almost gestural, like taking flowers when you go to someone’s house. You don’t have to, but why wouldn’t you?

We also know Starmer’s position, or certainly what it was last week, when he told reporters that he had “no plans” for a youth mobility scheme. However, there is no earthly way to guess his reasoning.

The Whitehall rumour is that he’s anxious to avoid looking like a fan of free movement, perhaps because that’s exactly what he was when fighting to become Labour leader. At the risk of overworking a metaphor, he’s fighting yesterday’s fire, which he set himself, in his own pants. Realistically, he is probably still in favour of free movement, for all the reasons he gave in 2020: it was beneficial to the economy, many vital sectors relied on it, not everyone felt “left behind” by it, and many people conversely felt connected, empowered and liberated. His posture of opposition fools nobody, but he’s boxed himself in.

Which doesn’t matter, because youth mobility doesn’t mean freedom of movement, or anything close. Participants have no right to overstay; it isn’t a route to residency or citizenship; there’s no corresponding right to claim benefits or bring family members. It’s a completely discrete arrangement, and even the Conservative government understood this, agreeing reciprocal deals with Australia, Canada and New Zealand as recently as 2023.

There’s a huge amount of flexibility in the terms – the UK has a health surcharge, and other countries wear that. The number of visas is capped, and as Tom Brufatto at the pro-Europe campaign group Best for Britain has said, the cap can be minuscule (our agreement with Uruguay is 500) or not (with Australia, it’s 45,000). Some might consider it reasonable to avoid any move that might drive up net migration, at a time when so much political mileage is made out of cursing the incomer. Others, however, might say to Labour: have you thought of getting some backbone, and actually celebrating the flow of people from one country to another as part of the lifeblood of the future? I know which side I’d be on, although neither is actually relevant to the youth mobility scheme, which on the evidence of our existing 13 reciprocal agreements instead drives net migration down. In 2023, 23,000 young people came to the UK on various youth schemes, while 26,000 young Britons went to Australia alone.

Indeed, that’s my only reservation about making a deal with Europe: that we’ll immediately be a net exporter of young people. Because really, who could blame them? It would mean the loss of some vital battalions from the Woke Army, but the cultural adventures of the 18-30s, the unlocked potential, the opportunities, the sheer pleasure, is more important, which is perhaps the critical point: just because rightwing politics has forsaken the young except to deplore their attitudes and critique the way they budget with their nonexistent money, it doesn’t mean we all have to. They may hold little interest, as voters, for the modern Conservative party or Nigel Farage, but there is no reason for a Labour government to toe that line.

Predictably, Labour voters are more supportive of a youth mobility scheme than Conservatives, and Reform voters least of all. But the numbers, from polling this August by More in Common, are quite striking; 71% of those who voted Labour in the last election, a genuinely overwhelming majority, were in favour of such a scheme; 56% of Conservative voters, which, in Brexit-speak, is an overwhelming majority; and 44% of Reform voters, a minority, sure, but far larger than the 27% who oppose the scheme. That groundswell of popular opinion that sees the softening of borders under any circumstances as a gateway drug to more migration doesn’t exist. Whatever constituency Starmer thinks he’s speaking for, in his rigidity, pollsters can’t find it.

EU representatives have described the youth mobility issue as a test of “goodwill”, but I would think it’s more like a test of good sense: what kind of negotiating partner will the UK be under its new management? Will we accept an idea that’s obviously win-win, or carry on playing as though in a zero-sum game?

It’s the natural issue on which to build a rapprochement, not just between the EU and the UK, but also within the UK, between leavers and remainers. The numbers who actively oppose this scheme are tiny – 15%. In the strength of support for it, you can see the passion of remainers, whose most bitter grief about the Brexit vote is not the drop off in grocery exports but the fact that their kids, many of whom weren’t even old enough to vote in the referendum, have been stripped of a fundamental freedom. But you can also see represented plenty of leavers, who may have wanted to take back control, but didn’t mean taking control of the under-30s. In that cross-section, there is the possibility of mutual understanding and perhaps, ultimately, compromise.

Starmer’s stance makes superficial sense, in so far as appearing too much like a remainer was always a risk to his building the broadest possible base. At a deeper level – the level we have a right to expect of a prime minister, where he makes decisions not for optics but on principles, where he considers the needs of real people, not the puffed-up outrage of rightwing columnists, where he’s thinking of the future and of reconciliation, not squatting on yesterday’s fight and trying to stay the right side of it – it makes no sense. It’s almost comical, how much reason, goodwill and generosity he’s prepared to sacrifice for the sake of a rump of the most fervent EU opponents who were mostly imagineered by Boris Johnson in the first place.

What’s not remotely funny is the solipsism of it: this decision is really about one man and his approval ratings taking precedence over a generation. On that basis alone, it can’t possibly hold. External pressure, whether from businesses or the cabinet, will bring him round sooner or later. Let it be sooner: later is a long time when you’re 18 to 30.