The Erasmus student scheme – often billed as enabling British students to spend a placement year in an EU country – is being brought back by Starmer. It was junked in the Brexit deal for very good reason…
Erasmus was always hugely expensive to British taxpayers. Prior to the UK leaving, it saw twice the number of EU students come to the UK than Brits to the EU – an imbalance underwritten by British taxpayers to the tune of at least £200 million a year. A British state-funded free year for the European middle class…
Now Starmer’s ‘EU Relations Minister’ Nick Thomas-Symonds has announced the return of Erasmus just as Westminster winds down for the Christmas recess. The government says it will cost £570m in the 2027/28 academic year – a payment directly to the EU. What happened to ‘taking back control of our money’?
The bill reveals the true direction of the revenue raised by Reeves’ hated measures such as the family farm tax (it will pay for less than one fifth of this scheme) and the plethora of other tax rises. Are British taxpayers going to be happy when they work out these tax hikes are just going straight into EU coffers?
Former Treasury minister and adviser to Burnham in the Makerfield campaign Lord Jim O’Neill, who has turned down a role in his government, said Burnham’s first statement Commons was:
“The last thing investors wanted to hear… gilt yields have risen by a 0.25% in one day, which is a lot. We’ve not had that since Liz Truss days… If your country is under the focus of ‘can they come up with a sensible fiscal strategy’ on a day when the markets think ‘well no, you’re not showing any sign of it’ you’re going to have a tough day…if it stays like this your mortgage rate is going up.”