FT称英国前政府曾考虑以青年流动和欧盟学生本土学费换取欧盟产业与钢铁让步

Keir Starmer considered letting 100,000 young Europeans come to UK every year
Sir Keir Starmer was looking at giving EU students “home fees” access to British universities and allowing up to 100,000 young Europeans into the UK each year as part of an ambitious economic plan taking shape in the dying days of his premiership.
Britain’s secret negotiating strategy for an EU summit — revealed to the FT by officials involved in drawing it up — was intended to unlock a deal to ensure UK companies were not hit by a new Brussels “Made in Europe” policy or new steel tariffs.
Andy Burnham, new prime minister, is looking afresh at the prospective deal between the two sides at a Brussels summit now scheduled for the autumn; the meeting was originally due to take place on July 22, two days after Starmer was forced out of Downing Street.
The revelation of Starmer’s negotiating plan — confirmed by three UK officials preparing the postponed July summit — will be seen as a benchmark by pro-European Labour MPs to assess the ambition of Burnham’s own fledgling EU policy.
Details of a proposed youth experience scheme remain by far the biggest stumbling block and Labour officials stressed that ministers in the new Burnham administration were “taking stock” of where negotiations got to under Starmer. “To be clear this isn’t current government policy,” said one.
As time ran out on Starmer’s premiership, London mooted with Brussels a cap on young EU citizens coming to Britain under the time-limited and reciprocal visa scheme at about 50,000. But privately UK officials said that number could have risen to 100,000 in exchange for summit concessions from Brussels.
Burnham is sensitive to accusations of being soft on migration and has said that every policy of his new administration must meet the “Makerfield test” — or be acceptable to voters in his white working-class constituency in the north of England.
Crucially, the UK side under Starmer was also prepared to agree at a later stage to EU demands that European students be able to study at UK universities for the same fees as home students, rather than at international rates that can be as high as £30,000 a year.
British officials argue that “home fees” were not on the table in May 2025 at the first EU-UK summit under Starmer’s premiership, which set in train work for the upcoming summit, and are a “new” demand that should be accompanied by a new offer from Brussels.
One British official said: “This was a new demand from the EU and so it would not have been part of the first package. But we would have been prepared to look at it in a future package, in exchange for something big on the economic side, such as being inside ‘Made in Europe’.”
Brussels is proposing to limit public contracts and subsidies for new technologies, such as electric vehicles and clean energy technologies, to manufacturers based in Europe and some trade partners under “Made in Europe” rules.
While the UK would have some access to the scheme under the proposal, cars for corporate fleets and small EVs would have to be assembled inside the bloc to be eligible for public procurement and subsidies. Corporate fleets make up 60 per cent of new car sales in Europe.
The proposal has sparked an outcry from Britain’s car industry. Nissan has warned it would put the future of its Sunderland site at risk, while BMW’s Mini plant in Oxfordshire would also be hindered by the move.
Meanwhile, a steel “safeguard” measure that drastically cut tariff-free imports of steel on July 1 to the EU is also endangering British steel production and has led to fierce UK lobbying.
Rachel Reeves, then chancellor, insisted in cabinet this year that any EU deal ensured that Britain was fully included in new Brussels initiatives and did not suffer any new tariffs.
“Keir, Rachel and Nick Thomas-Symonds [former European relations minister] were pushing it very hard,” said one official.
Another official said the cost of any extra state subsidies to UK universities would have been “massively outweighed” by the wider economic advantages of such a deal. “It would have been a footnote,” said the official.
Shortly before she was removed as finance minister, Reeves last month set out her ambitions in her Mansion House speech, in which she welcomed a planned summit agreement on trade in food and drink, emissions trading and a youth experience scheme.
“But I think that we need to be much bolder and go much further, moving towards a trusted economic and security partnership, where the default is that the UK is included not excluded,” Reeves said.
The EU summit will be a big early test for Burnham. His cabinet includes senior figures — notably home secretary Shabana Mahmood and health secretary Yvette Cooper — who are resistant to higher migration into Britain.
Veterans of the Starmer administration added that John Healey, former defence secretary and now chancellor, was “far less pro-European” than Reeves.
One European official said a proposed second round of negotiations in which the UK would gain access to the Made in Europe scheme in return for home fees for European students was unlikely.
“It sounds very British to me,” said one EU diplomat. “Win as much as possible and then make concessions rather vague and come at a later stage.”
Three EU diplomats told the FT that a number of member states had insisted that home tuition fees be part of the reset deal and were opposed to approving anything without them.
“The EU expects the issue of tuition fees to be solved [before the summit],” one said.
The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, told EU ambassadors at a private meeting in July that it stressed that lower tuition fees should be part of the youth experience scheme and that the UK should offer a large quota, according to people briefed on the conversation.
Officials in the Burnham government said that EU figures had in the past suggested they might be happy with a 50,000 annual cap for the youth experience scheme.
The UK government declined to comment on “ongoing negotiations”, adding: “We are building an ambitious, close relationship with the EU that will strengthen our economy and unlock growth in every postcode.”