Starmer should champion youth mobility

There was a bit of good news this week – for a while. The Times revealed that the government was willing to approve a reciprocal scheme under which people from both the EU and the UK would be able to travel, life and work in each other’s countries for up to three years. Not freedom of movement or anything like it, but a start.

It didn’t take long for a government spokesperson to deny it – but they would say that, wouldn’t they? Most of us still believe it will happen, and be written off by Keir Starmer as a price of easing some of the red tape that is harming small and medium British businesses.

But why does the presentation of this win for the British economy – supported by 68% of all voters, 57% of Tory voters and even by 53% of 2016 Leave voters in a poll taken in April – have to be like that?

The measure will be a godsend especially for the hospitality sector, which is gagging for bright, keen Europeans to fill its many job vacancies. It is also a welcome step back from the brink, the bad old days of severing all and every connection with the continent because unless we did it was “Brexit in name only”.

Yet even now a new government with a landslide win and a huge majority is having to make it sound like it really opposes this scheme, and will be dragged kickcking and screaming only as practical and minor concession to the EU. Why not be brave, and paint it as a win-win for both sides and the reversal of the suicidally stupid policies of the Tory Party?

What is really worrying is that this agreement, which only gives the UK the same rights as enjoyed by Australians and Canadians, is already being portrayed by the Labour government as the furthest that we will go, and that there will never be a return to free movement.

Now I know a lot of that is just spin doctoring, a desperate attempt to stop the Brexit-supporting right wing press from screaming treason. But here in the UK we tend to forget that foreigners do read our papers and listen to what the government says. This kind of stuff may be aimed at a domestic audience, but it will be noticed elsewhere too.

You just have to hope that behind the scenes the foreign secretary and his team of European experts are conducting some proper diplomacy and making some real gains.

Because there is a whole host of things that the UK wants and needs from the EU – an agreement on veterinary and plant safety and standards being the first and most obvious one, to end the need for costly checks and red tape at the border. Then there is the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, which would be a great help especially to our services sector and the City of London.

We know Labour want to get those deals done and reset our relationship with the EU. But the government has to change the mood music too. We have wasted eight years sneering at our European partners. Announcing this youth mobility deal with a fanfare as a very welcome step forward rather than an embarrassing concession would be far more sensible.

But then since Brexit, sensible has not been what the UK has been famous for.