Month by month, Labour is bringing us closer to Europe. This week, the UK announced it is rejoining the Erasmus+ youth exchange programme. This will open the door beyond the many young people who attend university – its remit includes FE students, apprentices, and youth and school groups. A whoop of excitement greeted the announcement, with opportunities for those involved in education, training, culture and sport, and a commitment to maximise take-up by disadvantaged young people. Widening experience, encouraging adventure: Erasmus+ may help cure Britain’s monolingual handicap and the catastrophic decline in language courses. Last year in the UK, less than 3% of A-levels were in languages.
This all eludes Europhobes such as Andrew Neil, who posted on X that “extra taxes now being inflicted on working people will be used to finance some ‘study’ in Barcelona for gap-year yahs from affluent families”.
