Why a post-Brexit UK must put its young people first

Chris Middleton dissects the biggest political decision to face the UK for a generation, and what impact it will have on the young.

The post-referendum UK rightly wants to face the future with hope and optimism, now that a majority of the population has voted to go it alone.

Skills and inward investment are key challenges for post-Brexit Britain, therefore. But while the UK wants to stand tall and inspire the confidence of the international community, we must acknowledge that real-world risks that have been created as a direct result of Brexit – risks to the very things that will be most important to our future success, including skills and inward investment.

One of these is the long-term risk of the UK breaking apart into separate nations competing for the same contracts and the same money. Another is the cost to social cohesion within a country that must now tell a convincing story to win (and retain) international business.

Before we get onto the skills challenge and how that affects our young people in particular, let's take a quick look at what may happen to the country whose independence Leavers believe they have won.

Scotland and Northern Ireland voted Remain. If Scotland detaches itself from the UK and somehow rejoins the continent, it will secure a major competitive advantage over England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile Northern Ireland will simmer next to its European neighbour across a heavily policed border, and Wales will struggle to get Westminster’s attention. In the long term, a breakup of the UK may be inevitable.

And in an ever more isolated England, very different visions of our society sit side by side in a nation subdivided by severe economic disparity, a North-South schism, a social rift between young and old (exacerbated by the Brexit), and a clash of metropolitan, inner-city, suburban, and rural cultures.

In each of these cases, Brexit has highlighted the divisions, not strengthened national unity. That's a problem we must now address, even though it was a foreseeable consequence of a reckless campaign that seems to have placed personal self-interest above the national interest, in some cases.

Other repercussions are emerging. Just a week ago, it seemed inconceivable – the stuff of dystopian fantasy – that there would be a genuine campaign to declare London an independent city state, although some would argue that the capital has been that since the 1980s. Meanwhile, pockets of anti-immigrant prejudice have opened in some of the communities that were most severely hit by austerity and by the 2008-09 recession.

Again, these complicate the story we need to tell our neighbours, allies, and partners in order to make Brexit work.

Anecdotal reports suggest Brexit appears to have both triggered and ‘legitimised’ sporadic attacks on ethnic minorities, in some communities and in some people’s minds. There have even been reports of anti-gay incidents, directly linked to Brexit. But that does not mean that our tolerant, welcoming UK no longer exists.

That said, even the most passionate and sincere Leaver who believes in a bright future for an independent Britain, free at last of bureaucratic, cronyistic Brussels, must accept that the notion of a single ‘British way of life’ now seems remote. Certainly, it's harder to sell.

That’s important in terms of the narrative we put before the world. Every country needs a story on the world stage. From this week, we must start telling one that the world believes.

A key challenge will be deciding how to attract international business to a UK that seems to be at war with itself, and with the population’s attitudes to Europe split down the middle.

Another key question is: How to convince overseas partners, customers, and prospects that they should invest in the post-Brexit UK? Or in some future independent England – rather than in, say, a competitive, upbeat, outward-looking Scotland that supports both European membership and integration?

As things stand, the ability of the UK to attract skilled, experienced people from the EU and elsewhere to live and work here must also be in doubt. Around the world, front pages reveal that our allies and partners think we’ve lost our minds. That must be a cause for concern for British businesses. We need those skilled people.

So we have to face facts: by seeking to assert our independence in this way, after months of negative campaigning that we now know was based on half truths and misinformation, and in our quest to win back the sovereignty that Parliament already had as a simple constitutional truth, the UK may have made itself toxic to overseas investors.

That's no overstatement: the only figures on the world stage to give Brexit the thumbs-up are Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and an assortment of terrorist groups.

All of this has particular relevance for the UK’s young people. And it can only be in the nation's youth that the answer to all of the above questions lies.

The government’s own statistics reveal that the UK's young people – our future – were the hardest hit by recession and austerity. UK youth unemployment stands at 13.6 per cent of all 16-24 year olds. That total is falling, but it is still nearly three times higher than the overall unemployment rate of 5.4 per cent. Average wages have also fallen for young people faster than for other workers.

Just a year ago, prominent Outer Ian Duncan Smith warned young people that they would be forced to pick up litter if they wanted to receive benefits. The revelation that the Leave campaign has no post-Brexit plan for Britain suggests that IDS’ strategy for the nation’s youth has progressed little since then. Hardly an inspiring vision.

A tragedy for our young people is that on the day the UK (as it stands) formally leaves the EU, they may lose their right to live and work freely across 27 countries. Brexit may leave them isolated, with none of the advantages of their European peers, separated from a continent that has no reason to help them acquire skills and experience, least of all to invest in them.

(It must be acknowledged that if freedom of movement and labour are not impacted by Brexit, depending on whatever deal the UK strikes with Europe, then Leave campaigners will have failed to achieve their stated goal of quitting.)

Polls show that those young people didn’t vote for Brexit; their grandparents did. But in many cases, those young people didn’t vote at all; they’re disengaged from local politics, while still connected to the wider world via smartphones and social platforms. Their social perspective knows no bounds, but the country they live in is putting up walls. This is why there’s a growing youth revolt on social media.

This means the UK no longer has a choice: it must invest in, and re-engage with, its own young people; invest in their training, education, and professional development; invest in giving them the international perspective that leaving Europe has stripped from them.

After all, their counterparts in Europe can travel and work freely across the continent, just as their American, Chinese, and Indian peers have vast, diverse countries in which to gain experience and skills.

And the UK must stop burdening its students with debt – a practice that’s made them into little more than grist for the financial services mill.

From the day parliament invokes Article 50 and we leave the EU, the nation must start paying its undergraduates’ tuition fees again. It’s the least we can do to show faith in them.

But rumours of international banks exiting the City are rife, our credit rating has been cut – which means businesses' credit ratings have also been cut, making borrowing more expensive for everyone – and so a financial services sector damaged by the Brexit may say that it can’t afford to write off a generation’s student loans. The government may find that is true.

Whatever the pros and cons of Brexit, we stand on the threshold of it being a reality. It’s clear that whatever plan does emerge for a post-Europe Britain, our young people must be at the heart of it. If they are not, then we have abandoned the generation that will left to make this work.

---

Chris Middleton is a Senior Company Associate at always possible