Erasmus is back

The government has confirmed that the UK will rejoin the Erasmus scheme from 2027.

The UK left the scheme in December 2020, when the British government announced its post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.

🇪🇺 The UK is back in Erasmus!!

🧑‍🎓 This is crucial to provide young people and educational institutions with much needed opportunity.

💙 We have to continue building our relationship with Europe and work towards rejoining the EU. pic.twitter.com/J9ZXwWxBHL

— Young Greens 🌱 (@YoungGreenParty) December 17, 2025

The UK will now pay £570m to participate in the scheme in the 2027/28 academic year, which is reportedly 30% less than the standard price for non-EU states. The UK’s access to the program in future years will depend on a new deal being made.

Utterly utterly pathetic. The BIGGEST political waste of time, ever. Pissed away all of our opt-outs gained as a longtime EU member and now we’re just going to rejoin, piece by little piece (and with zero goodwill). Brexit voters should never be allowed to vote ever again. https://t.co/SFviITt6jI

— Radio Syldavié Libre (@syllibre) December 17, 2025

Erasmus — Young people paying the price

For five years, young people have been paying the price for boomers’ shitty decisions.

In 2016, 73% of 18-24-year-olds voted to remain in the EU. But in comparison, only 40% of those aged 65 and above voted Remain, and 43.5% of those aged 45-64.

In total, 17.4m people voted to leave the EU, with only 16.1m voting to remain.

The majority was only 1.3m.

A recent article by Peter Kellner on Substack states:

Since then, more than six million Britons have died. . .

Assuming that five million of the six million people who have died turned out in the referendum, 3.2 million people who voted Leave have died, as against 1.8 million who voted Remain.

This means that among people who are alive today and who voted in the 2016 referendum, remainers exceed leavers by 14.3-14.2 million.

Additionally, since the referendum, 6m more people have reached voting age, and YouGov’s data suggests that they back rejoining the EU by five-to-one.

This also overlooks the fact that many people may have changed their minds since 2016.

Now, British students will once again be able to spend a year studying at a European university as part of their degree, without paying extra fees. Similarly, EU students will benefit from the same at UK universities.

Of course, the UK could have saved all the hassle of paying to rejoin Erasmus now. However, Boris Johnson decided the scheme was not ‘value for money’

Add it to the list

However, Erasmus isn’t the only thing that Brexit ruined.

UK citizens now face longer queues at airports, roaming charges in EU countries and no longer have the automatic right to live, work or study freely in the EU. And not to mention the rise in xenophobia and racism.

Economically, the country is also worse off.

According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research:

Brexit has permanently diminished trade efficiency in the UK by introducing customs checks, rules of origin requirements, and regulatory divergence from the EU. These barriers increase costs for both exporters and importers, weakening the UK’s international competitiveness.

It adds:

Furthermore, Brexit has intensified the UK’s longstanding productivity issues that have persisted since the 2008 financial crisis. Brexit has imposed lasting structural constraints on productivity, such as trade inefficiencies that disrupt just-in-time supply chains, labour shortages caused by ending free movement, increased business costs, and diminished output. These factors lower investment and restrict capital accumulation. Unlike cyclical downturns, Brexit’s negative impact on productivity is enduring and structural.

Brexit fucked us all over. And it’s still probably too soon to even appreciate all the long-term implications of it yet.

At least now, the Labour government is taking one tiny step in the right direction.

Feature image via Jannes Van den Wouwer on Unsplash