All blogs

When we left the EU, the UK also left the Erasmus+ Programme, robbing future generations of young people in the UK of the chance to experience education, training and sport opportunities across Europe. 

According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which has published the data for the first full post-Brexit year, the number of EU students enrolling in British universities has more than halved since Brexit – with sharp declines in scholars from Italy, Germany and France, figures reveal. 

Brexit is seen as the primary deterrent, with home fees and student finance no longer available to EU students who do not already live in the UK with settled or pre-settled status. 

With this in mind, on Thursday 9th February 2023, the Young European Movement (YEM) UK welcomed participants from across the UK to London for its 2023 Erasmus+ Academy, a political bootcamp designed to connect like-minded young pro-Europeans, provide them with a toolkit of skills for how to run an effective political campaign on re-joining the Erasmus+ programme.  

This two-day programme of events kick-started with a Networking Reception in Europe House on the Future of UK-EU Relations in Education, where over sixty attendees heard unique insight from several senior commentators on how the relationship can be strengthened.  

The German Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Miguel Berger, laid down a marker at the offset by sharing his disappointment over the UK’s decision to terminate its Erasmus+ membership, adding that it was his government’s desire for this decision to be reversed.  

Following on from Ambassador Berger’s assessment, Labour MP for Preston, Sir Mark Hendrick, took to the stage and gave a devasting analysis of the Government’s track record on Brexit and the damage that it has done to the economy. He shared Labour’s vision of a closer relationship with Europe on key issues, including agreements on security and defence, Horizon+ membership as well as leaving the door open on Erasmus+. 

We then heard from another former MEP and Liberal Democrat Peer, Baroness Sarah Ludford, who brought down the house with a witty and frank critique of how this government has dealt with the fallout from leaving the EU. In looking to shape a future where London and Brussels could engage in a meaningful and advantageous manner, she cited the dangers associated with the Retained EU Law Bill and spoke of her work as the Europe Spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats.  

For those of you unable to attend the reception you can watch a selection of the speeches here. 

On Friday, YEM members then took to Bush House at King’s College London for an action-packed day of political training and insight, beginning with a presentation and workshop from European Movement’s campaign and communications team on their Retained EU Law Bill campaign. This workshop provided YEM members with insider knowledge on what constructing an effective campaign looks like. 

Following on from this, YEM members received an eye-opening presentation from globally renowned pollsters, Opinium, who shared with us public attitudes around Brexit: past, present and future. After lunch, we then heard from an aspiring young journalist, Eleanor Longman-Rood, from The New European on the current landscape of the UK media and how to get your message across. 

We finished our afternoon’s training and capacity building with two in-house workshops, the first of which concentrated on public affairs and stakeholder mapping, and the second of which concentrated on our work campaigning to rejoin the Erasmus+ Programme. 

The entire YEM team is thrilled with the success of the Erasmus+ Academy and is confident that it places us on a strong footing to advance our campaign and strengthen our network of young pro-Europeans through the United Kingdom. 

Rejoining Erasmus+ could be a key step towards rebuilding bridges with Europe and this event proved that, together, we can restore the opportunities once afforded to young people in the UK pre-Brexit.  

Art O’Mahony  

Young European Movement Coordinator 

On Saturday 4th February, 37 local groups across the country took part in the Retained EU Law Bill Action Day. This was a crucial next step in the campaign to ‘Save our Standards’.  

From Leeds to Lancaster, local groups handed out over 20,000 leaflets, managed to raise our petition to almost 40,000 signatures, and spoke to over 2,000 people about the dangers of the Retained EU Law Bill. An outstanding result from our network of activists.  

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who helped at the weekend to raise awareness about the dangers of the bill. 

The overall message we heard from the Retained EU Law Action Day was that public opinion is shifting, and EMUK would love to share some positive interactions that took place throughout the day.  

Read more

In the House of Commons on Wednesday 18th January 2023, MPs voted against amendments to delay the Retained EU Law Bill. This means that, as it stands, the Retained EU Law Bill will come into effect on December 31st, 2023, jeopardising the standards that keep us safe. 

In line with this, European Movement UK is doing everything we can to raise awareness surrounding the dangers of the bill over the coming weeks, before it comes back to the Commons for a final vote.  

With this deadline in mind, on Thursday 2nd February 2023, European Movement UK hosted a webinar where supporters were given the opportunity to hear from veteran campaigners on the risks of the Retained EU Law Bill, and the best ways to campaign against it, in preparation for our Retained EU Law Action day which took place on Saturday 4th February 2023.  

Speakers included Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and EMUK Vice-President, Mhairi Snowden, Director of the Human Rights Consortium Scotland, Gareth Lloyd-Johnson, Campaigns Manager for Breast Cancer UK and our very own Retained EU Law Bill expert Richard Kilpatrick, Campaigns Manager for European Movement UK.  

Caroline Lucas MP discussed her work opposing the bill in Parliament and why she thinks it should be scrapped, as well as advice and arguments that she thinks work well when out campaigning against the bill.  Mhairi Snowden highlighted the human rights violations of the bill and went on to give a comprehensive yet easy to grasp list on all the things the bill affects. Gareth Lloyd-Johnson gave a detailed explanation of the ways that the bill is not only affecting cancer research but the access to chemicals, scientific research and data in the UK. Richard Kilpatrick ended by going into the more specific details of the bill as well as defining the dashboard, the sunset clause and a framework bill.  

The webinar also involved an open discussion between participants and speakers where a range of impressive and informed questions were asked and answered, four such questions are displayed below: 

Peter Burke asked this question to Caroline Lucas and received this answer:  

Q. Am I right in thinking that the bill cannot be implemented in Northern Ireland while the NIP is in place, as NI is in the EU Customs Union? Is that not likely to upset the DUP even more and make a return of the troubles more likely?

A. That is my understanding as well, and it’s interesting it has not been part of the discussions, at least not in the HOC chamber, around the NIP and so forth. But it certainly feeds into that, and just as you described it means that the chances of achieving stability there and averting the worst of the tension, we are already seeing are becoming less likely. It makes all of that tension much worse.

I don’t suppose you’re likely to get into that on the doorstep unless you’re speaking with someone that is extremely knowledgeable. But I would just end by saying that it is great to see that some people are really knowledgeable on the Retained EU Law Bill. But also, don’t worry if you aren’t, I think the most important thing to say is that there are massive risks to so many of the protections that have been so hard fought over decades. Whether that’s environment, workers’ rights, health and safety. The way the bill is being handled is just so undemocratic, the idea that it’s just left up to ministers to decide which bits they are going to keep and which bits they are going to throw away is terrible. So, I would advise sticking to these points when out campaigning as it really conveys what is at stake with this bill.  

Lucy Pope asked this question to Mhairi Snowden and received this answer:  

Q. Can the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Assemblies and Stormont (once back) override this law and re-enact these laws?

A. So I think that they wish they could, actually in fact I know from a Scottish Parliament point of view they wish they could. But the reality is a lot more complex than that and they are more restricted than you might imagine.

The Retained EU Law Bill is UK level legislation, and England are in effect giving themselves the power to legislate in devolved areas if they want to. But it looks very likely that the Scottish parliament will not give their consent to this bill. However, we’ve seen the Scottish Parliament (about seven times now since Brexit) not give their consent on certain things, but those things have gone ahead anyway. In that way this process is becoming less and less useful. So, because of the complexity of our constitutional situation there is very little that the Scottish parliament can do to challenge the Retained EU Law Bill.  

I think some of the things they can do to approach it is by keeping as much Retained EU Law in devolved areas as possible before that cliff-edge happens, and that is definitely what they will be focusing their attention on. There is actually also legislation in Scotland called the Continuity Act that is all about trying to keep pace with the EU. But even that is difficult to retain because it’s difficult to have higher standards in one part of the UK than in another, particularly in Scotland rather than England. In many ways England sets the standards and Scotland must follow suit across lots of different areas. I’m talking about Scotland as that is what I know, but I also know a lot of the same issues apply in Wales and Northern Ireland.  

Richard Fieldhouse asked this question to Gareth Lloyd-Johnson and received this answer:  

Q. Could you outline some of the implications for workplace / workers' rights please?

A. I think it’s just to reiterate that point, but as other speakers said it’s slightly difficult as we don’t know exactly what laws we are going to be dealing with. But certainly, higher standards of safety for workers is not the outcome we expect. Also, the problem is as I said we are blocking ourselves out of the science community, so we won’t necessarily have the data on the effects on workers going forward. So not only are we losing what was previously known, we are being blocked out of negotiations and from data in the future. Plus if changes are made in Europe, we can take this bill as a measure that future laws will be watered down before they meet our legislation putting our workers at further risk.

John Handford asked this question to Richard Kilpatrick and received this answer:  

Q. If the sunset clause is enacted, can a new bill reverse the effects by negating the first bill?

A. Yes, constitutionally yes. A new government is never bound by the previous. But we obviously need to defeat the sunset clause by 2023 first and we are leaning quite heavily on the Lords now given that that amendment did not pass at the Commons stage.

Throughout the webinar, participants showed interest in getting more involved with the next part of the ‘Save our Standards’ campaign including contacting Lords before the second reading on Monday 6th February 2023. Participants of the webinar will be happy to hear that following this discussion our team personally contacted all Lords who were down to attend the debate. This resulted in the vast majority of the 54 Lords picking apart the bill and dismissing it in its current form.  

Here are a few of our favourites, you can read:  

• Lord Heseltine's (President of the European Movement and Deputy Prime-Minister under Marget Thatcher) response to the bill here 
• Baroness Ludford’s (Liberal Democrat) response to the bill here 
• Baroness Chapman’s (Labour) response to the bill here  

Thank you again to everyone who attended the webinar, for your great questions and unique ideas on how we can take this campaign even further.  

To everyone who was unable to make it you can watch the full webinar here.  

Emma Knaggs 

Head of Grassroots Engagement EMUK  

Today marks three years since the UK withdrew from the European Union. Remember these?

Read more

“What on earth do the strikes have to do with Brexit?” 

“What on earth do the strikes have to do with Brexit?” This was the question asked by Kevin O'Sullivan recently on Talk TV. 

Quite a lot, actually.  

Nowhere else in Europe are we seeing industrial action on such a scale. The UK has not seen industrial action like this since the winter of discontent in 1978-79. 

When it comes to industrial action in the UK, the closest we saw to current strike levels was in 2011 when we lost 1.39m working days (ONS). In 2022, by October we had already lost 1.617 million working days.   

Recent data published by the UK in a Changing Europe and Centre for European Reform thinktanks revealed that in September 2022, the UK economy lost 330,000 workers because of Brexit. 

The UK has 58,000 fewer nurses than if the numbers arriving before Brexit had continued.   

Brexit-induced migratory hurdles and poor wages have made Britain an unattractive destination for Europe’s nurses. The number of EU and EFTA (European Free Trade Association) nurses in the UK has decreased by 28% from 38,992 in September 2016 to 28,007 in September 2021, forcing the NHS to recruit from ‘red list’ countries to meet staff shortages, a report from Nuffield Trust suggests. 

It is no coincidence then that NHS staff, postal workers and bus drivers are feeling the pressure, they have lost hundreds of their colleagues to Brexit.  

Take bus drivers, we are in need of them across the country, with shortages increasing since Brexit. Many operators note they have numerous EU drivers who used to work for them, sometimes seasonally, who would like to continue to do so but are unable to because bus driving is not included in the Skilled Worker Visa list and bus drivers are not considered a “Shortage Occupation” by the UK Government. 

It also doesn’t help that remaining bus drivers are being asked to change careers and become HGV drivers to fill the gap in drivers since Brexit. HGV drivers get paid on average £40,000 more annually than bus drivers (North East Bylines). So, it is no surprise that bus drivers are striking on the grounds of pay and staff shortages. 

Clearly, the recent strikes are a symptom of post-Brexit politics, where wages in the UK are stagnating, prices are soaring, and we are short of labour. 

Brexit is a key factor in the ongoing strikes, but this is not being talked about. Our government does not want to acknowledge the impact that losing thousands of vital EU workers has had on our public services. 

Brexit has ravaged the UK economy, an economy completely dependent on EU workers, and this is making the cost-of-living crisis far worse than it should have been. 

Instead of talking honestly about the effects of Brexit on the UK economy and the labour market, they continue to peddle what the Financial Times is calling the ‘conspiracy of silence’ on Brexit. 

Just as the Brexiteer government seems determined to get rid of EU Laws that protect our standards through the Retained EU Law Bill. The same government seems determined to stop strikes, not through negotiation, but by changing the law. The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill 2023 has now replaced a 2022 Bill limited to ‘transport strikes’, reflecting a shift in ambition.  

According to the UK in a Changing Europe, “While new legislation might seem to offer the Brexiteer government an opportunity to ‘take back control’, the UK’s relationship with Europe continues to pose problems. They have claimed that the United Nations agency, the International Labour Organization (ILO), supports such measures and that they are applied in France, Italy and Spain. 

Whilst the government’s ‘Memorandum on European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)’ asserts that the Bill is compatible with Convention rights, closer examination shows that neither of these claims hold water. Instead, the reality is that the UK is in danger of breaching obligations under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).” 

Once again, the Brexiteer government does not have a plan for the negative implications caused by Brexit.  

Anna Bird, 

CEO, European Movement UK 

Let us know if you agree. Do you see the link between Brexit and the strikes? 

The mission of the European Movement is to campaign step by step towards rejoining the EU. We’re looking for a dynamic and committed person to lead our organisation –the largest cross-party, pro-European membership organisation in the UK, with 200,000 supporters, over 100 branches, and more than 16,000 members.

The successful candidate, to be chosen by the EMUK membership in a secret ballot, will be expected to front our step-by-step campaign towards rejoining the EU and help grow our membership and reach in a watershed period for UK relations with Europe.

They will take on both a public-facing role representing the EM effectively in the media and on platforms and taking responsibility for the Movement’s internal governance and strategy.  EM is committed to equality and would welcome candidates from diverse backgrounds. 

For more details about the role, which is to be undertaken without remuneration, please contact: Emma Knaggs ([email protected]). The closing date for nominations is Monday 13^th February.

See here for the full job description. 

It was only a matter of time before the Government invited full-blown rebellion in its attempts to scrap standards and protections that originated in the European Union. MPs have finally woken up to what all this means for legislation we take for granted and what it will do to our environmental protections. 

As an architect of the EU Habitats Directive and former vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee during my time as an MEP, I take a great interest in this Government’s commitment to protecting the environment. As Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said in reply to the Director General for Democracy at the Council of Europe, we should be “maintaining and, where possible improving, environmental standards and continue to deliver international obligations”. 

Today (17/01/23) I will be speaking at the Castle Environment Debate summarising the critical outcomes of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in Montreal last month as they appear in the Kunming-Montreal Global Framework Agreement. 

This framework establishes a global commitment to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, protect 30% of global land and ocean, and restore 30% of degraded land by 2030. This a much-needed and welcome step to restore biodiversity across the globe. 

A link between climate goals and nature-based solutions is the key to a meaningful response to the climate emergency. The agreement brokered last month sets out a commitment to end human-induced-species extinctions of known threatened species by 2030. It establishes a new international fund to tackle the nature crisis and agrees to install a new multilateral system to share the benefits arising from the use of genetic information. 

And while global leaders take the steps required to answer the significant environmental challenges of our lifetime, the UK Government is threatening to weaken and diminish legislative protections and standards that originated from our time in the European Union. 

The Retained EU Law Bill, which will be debated in the House of Commons on Wednesday, gives ministers and civil servants unprecedented power to revoke and amend standards and regulations that we have taken for granted. 

Almost 4,000 individual pieces of legislation are at risk, nearly 1,000 of which are vital environmental and wildlife protections that my colleagues and I worked tirelessly to establish in the European Parliament. 

The Retained EU Law Bill proposes a ‘sunsetting’ mechanism meaning that these laws that have not been rewritten, amended, or retained by the end of 2023 will simply disappear. 

When Jacob Rees-Mogg first introduced the Bill, over 79 environmental organisations warned that this could put legal protections for 600 Areas of Special Conservation at risk. They create uncertainty for businesses, shatter long-term sustainability of our economy, and unleash environmental losses that could reduce the quality of life for millions of people here in the UK. 

Where is the Government’s consistency?

(Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA)

This Brexit-at-any-cost-Bill will run roughshod over critical EU-derived environmental measures already in the statute book. Vital protections such as the UK Habitat and Species Regulations – which are the legal underpinning of the Emerald Network, the ecological network made up of Areas of Special Conservation – will be crucial for the UK’s ability to deliver the agreement reached in Montreal last month. 

Of course, there is more that we can do, and I will go on record tomorrow calling for a package of specific, agreed scientific indicators to track our progress globally for the first time in history. We need legally binding requirements to report transparently and take stock every four years to ensure we remain on track. But this builds on the work of the United Kingdom championed during our time in the European Union. We must avoid undoing what we have already achieved. 

Key to all of this is closer cooperation with our friends in key European and international scientific bodies, not less! To achieve our global aims, the UK should rejoin bodies such as the European Environment Agency at the earliest possible opportunity. 

As part of their “Battle for the Soul of our Country”, I have supported the European Movement’s campaign to stop the Bill and instead call the Government to provide legal minimum standards guarantee for legislation affected by it. 

If this Government’s manifesto commitment to build “the most ambitious environmental program on Earth” has any truth to it whatsoever, it must protect those standards and kill the Retained EU Law Bill.

Stanley Johnson is an author, former MEP and environmental campaigner. In the run-up to the 2016 EU Referendum, he co-chaired Environmentalists for Europe with Baroness Barbara Young.

The last year was one of the most politically challenging of all my time in Westminster.  

We experienced the ideological zealotry of three Brexiteer prime ministers, we are in the midst of a cost-of-living scandal and our environmental protections are under unprecedented attack. These crises are no coincidence. They are all in part caused, or at the very least made worse, by Brexit.

Throughout 2022 we watched the Brexiteer government use every excuse from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine to hide our country’s economic and environmental woes. They tabled the disastrous Retained EU Law Bill which, if passed, could lead to the removal of over 4,000 EU laws that protect our environmental, food and safety standards, the Bill is about to enter a third reading, and last week we learned that the Bill could be delayed by the Lords.  

We have seen political leaders start a near Trade War with the Northern Ireland Protocol in its current form. All things that could have been prevented if voters had known the truth back in 2016. 

The mainstream political conversation continues to centre around ‘making Brexit work’, but, as I recently said at European Movement’s Big 4 event “you cannot make Brexit work, you might be able to make it slightly less bad around the edges but the idea that you’re going to make it work is dishonest”. 

Ultimately, Brexit was a historic mistake and there is, still, no way to make it work. 

However, the good news is that public opinion is with us. Poll after poll is now showing that a majority of people realise Brexit was the wrong decision– 56% according to YouGov’s latest data.

We’re winning the argument with people up and down the country, but there’s still a lot of work for us to do before this translates into real action. So, as we enter a new year, it is more important than ever that we continue this work. This is because last year we began laying the groundwork to make this happen.   

In October 2022, I became a VP of European Movement UK, the only cross-party organisation with the courage and expertise to reverse the calamity of Brexit. As a VP of a pro-European organisation, and the only Green Party MP, I was also proud to see the Green party (at our most recent party conference) overwhelmingly vote in favour of rejoining the EU as soon as the political situation is favourable.  

However, reversing Brexit isn’t something that’s going to happen immediately – in fact, there are some big fights that lie ahead. Yet, there are strategic measures that can be taken in the short term to ensure that we reverse Brexit and return to Europe, such as:   

• Killing the Retained EU Law Bill;   
• Rejoining Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe;   
• Building European Movement’s Membership base, in order to;  
• Create stronger and more local branches of pro-European activists across the country.   

Over the next year we must ensure our precious standards are protected, keep Europe front and centre in the national conversation, and build political pressure to undo the damage of Brexit in the run-up to a general election. 

But, in order to do all this, we need a powerful movement behind us. This is why I urge you to join the movement leading the fight.  

Clearly, there are some big fights that lie ahead this year, but for the first time, I am feeling hopeful about our journey back to Europe, and I know that together we can reverse the calamity of Brexit.  

Thank you for all your support over the last year in making this a reality.  

Caroline Lucas MP,  

Vice President of European Movement UK