Tradukado

Ah, Brexit. Makes one proud to be British, what-what? That shining example of direct democracy, that ice-cold cleaver of communities, that stupendous act of self-sabotage. You remember where you were, don’t you, for that bombshell, for that proverbial punch in the gut? Ears ringing, mind racing. Almost a decade on, and the hatchet has yet to be buried. In a storyline befitting of the Great British soap opera, Remainers and Leavers find themselves enmeshed in the most dysfunctional of marriages, divided in unity. On one side of the fault line, rage and indignance have given way to smouldering resentment; on the other, arrogance and scorn to indifference.

But let us change the channel. If you have ever seen a Disney film, then you will know that the evil sorcerer must be on the cusp of plunging the world into eternal darkness before the hero can swoop in and save the day. Dramatic tension and all that. So, if this marriage is to be saved at the eleventh hour, if there is to be hope beyond hope, then what we need is a knight in shining armour. Enter Bravely Bold Sir Keir. His perilous quest? The UK-EU reset. Don’t worry: we are not about to deep-dive into legal and policy frameworks. First, this is not that kind of blog, and second, I am far too lazy to do that much research. But I would like to focus on one element of the reset that has made the news this week.

A great many strands were lost in the tissue of lies that was the Leave Campaign and then in the complex web that was the Brexit divorce bill. One of them was, and still is, close to my heart: Erasmus, the EU’s student exchange programme, from which the UK sadly withdrew as part of its settlement with the Union, and in which I was fortunate enough to participate for the 2005/6 academic year, attending the universities of Heidelberg, in southwest Germany, and Caen, in northern France.

I will be the first to admit that I did not spend all those 10 months with my head buried in books. In fact, for much of the time, I remember feeling quite adrift. That was partly because I was grieving for my father, who had died suddenly some months before, but also because I lacked the familiarity and structure of my life in the UK. In addition, for most of my spell in Caen, the university was occupied and barricaded by students as part of a major protest against proposed changes to employment law that would have adversely affected young people. (Striking and protesting are, of course, French institutions, so one might say that what I forwent in formal education I gained in cultural enlightenment.)

Feelings of limbo notwithstanding, I had a lot of fun that year: going to concerts and parties; belting out britpop hits on stage with my compatriots at weekly karaoke nights (although it might be hard to imagine this now, back then it was pretty cool to be British); playing football with locals on the banks of the River Neckar. But the most enriching part of the exchange was simply mixing with people from other countries. My newfound friends hailed from France and Germany, naturally, but also from Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the United States. I am still in touch with a couple of them, despite withdrawing completely from social media. The point I am trying to make is that Erasmus is above all a cultural exchange. And in an age of funding cuts for any programme that does not have clearly quantifiable economic benefits, it is comforting to know that Erasmus is still going strong.

When the UK left the EU, I was devastated on a personal level, partly because I had spent around half of my adult life living and working on the continent, so I absolutely did not want to lose freedom of movement, but chiefly because I felt – and still feel – European. However, I was also devastated on behalf of all the young people in the UK who could not have the culturally enriching experience that I had had. Imagine how delighted I was, then, to learn this week that the UK will soon be rejoining the Erasmus programme as part of the aforementioned reset. So well done, Bravely Bold Sir Keir, for not gallantly chickening out. At least not from this particular fight.