Young Britons wanting to work or study in EU face ‘tangle of Brexit red tape’
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Young Britons who want to work or study across the Channel face a “tangle of Brexit red tape”, according to an MP who has formally proposed a UK-EU youth mobility scheme. James MacCleary warned that lower barriers for young European Union citizens to live and work in the UK had been “mischaracterised” as freedom of movement.
Ministers have previously declined to “give a running commentary” on their negotiations with the 27-member bloc, but the Brussels-based European Commission has proposed talks with London to facilitate youth mobility. MPs agreed on Monday that Mr MacCleary’s Youth Mobility Scheme (EU Countries) Bill should be introduced to the House of Commons for further consideration.
He told MPs that the UK’s relationship with the EU was “botched”, adding that Labour ministers had “stuck so closely to the Conservative Party’s script – or the Reform UK script – that ministers have even mischaracterised a youth mobility scheme with the EU as a return to freedom of movement”.
Mr MacCleary, the Liberal Democrats’ Europe spokesman, had earlier told the Commons: “Few thought that young people would be able to go for two years to live and work all the way over in Japan, but not be able to hop across the Channel and do the same in France.
“I’m not sure anyone voted for that kind of increased bureaucracy back in 2016. “This Bill gives us the chance to send a different message to a generation of young people who have been denied the opportunities that so many of us in this chamber took for granted growing up.
