I was resolutely opposed to Brexit. I remain convinced that it diminished both the United Kingdom and the European Union. It did so economically, politically, and symbolically. Yet democracy does not end where disappointment begins. The British people voted, the decision was implemented, and history moved on. What remains is not whether Brexit should have happened, but how responsibly its consequences are managed. That is why the UK’s decision to rejoin Erasmus+ from 2027 matters far beyond the confines of student exchanges. It is a quiet, deliberate, and consequential signal that the long work of repair has begun.
Erasmus+ is not a concession extracted from a defeated party. It is also not a stealth reversal of the referendum. It is a confidence-building measure between two partners that have learned, painfully, that rupture carries costs for both sides. In an era of performative politics, this return to functional cooperation is refreshingly untheatrical. It says that after years of posturing, London and Brussels are rediscovering the value of pragmatism, of doing what works, even when grand reconciliations remain politically out of reach.
The choice of Erasmus+ is telling. Few programmes embody European soft power as clearly. It builds skills, broadens horizons, and weaves human networks that outlast election cycles. For young people in particular, Erasmus+ has been a rite of passage into a wider world. The UK’s withdrawal from it was one of the most tangible, everyday losses of Brexit. It was not felt in abstract trade statistics but in classrooms, campuses, and communities. Its restoration does not erase the past five years, but it acknowledges a simple truth: cooperation in education and skills strengthens competitiveness, social cohesion, and trust.
This is what a credible Brexit reset looks like. Not denial. Not revisionism. Not a rush to reopen the settlement. A reset that works with political realities while quietly improving outcomes. Rejoining Erasmus+ respects the UK’s red lines while advancing mutual interests. Today, no free movement, no single market, no customs union are still in place. Rejoining Erasmus+ demonstrates that selective cooperation can coexist with institutional separation. In doing so, it offers a template for rebuilding ties incrementally, sector by sector, without relitigating the referendum.
Such humility is not weakness. Call it maturity. The most durable political arrangements are rarely rebuilt in a straight line. They are reconstructed through patient confidence-building, through policies that deliver visible benefits and rebuild habits of cooperation. On the question of the UK ultimately rejoining the EU, realism must prevail: it is unlikely in the foreseeable future. But politics is rarely static. If history teaches anything, it is that relationships heal when incentives align and trust is restored, often sooner than cynics expect. Fingers crossed, yes, but grounded in the hard work of repair.
Yet the significance of Erasmus+ extend beyond Europe’s internal architecture. Brexit did not only fracture UK–EU relations at home. It exported European disunity abroad, most visibly to Africa. In the years since the referendum, London and Brussels have too often pursued parallel strategies on the continent: duplicating instruments, competing narratives, and fragmenting impact. What should have been complementarity became rivalry. What should have been coordination became clutter.
Africa matters profoundly to both the UK and the EU, economically, demographically, geopolitically. Europe’s future growth, security, and climate resilience are entwined with Africa’s. And yet, post-Brexit, African partners have frequently encountered two Europes where one would have sufficed: overlapping trade initiatives, competing development finance, and unaligned regulatory approaches. The result has been inefficiency at best, confusion at worst, and missed opportunities for African agency to set the terms of engagement.
This is where the lesson of Erasmus+ becomes instructive. Cooperation does not require political reintegration. It requires political intelligence. Erasmus+ shows that shared programmes can be rebuilt on mutually agreed terms, delivering public value without reopening old wounds. Applied to Africa, this logic points to a necessary reframing: the UK and the EU do not need to compete for African trade; they need to cooperate for African transformation.
Such cooperation would not erase differences. Nor should it. The UK’s bilateral agility can complement the EU’s scale, regulatory depth, and convening power. Its ability to move quickly, tailor partnerships, and mobilise finance was instructive. Together, they can support African priorities more coherently: skills and vocational training, digital connectivity, climate adaptation, and industrial value chains aligned with the African Continental Free Trade Area. Done well, this would replace zero-sum rivalry with outcome-driven alignment.
Diaspora networks are the connective tissue in this story. Across Europe and the UK, African diasporas possess market knowledge, cultural fluency, and investment capital that remain underutilised. They are bridges, not battlegrounds. A cooperative UK–EU posture in Africa would empower these communities as partners in development and trade, rather than forcing them to navigate competing bureaucracies. Trade is not a trophy to be won from Africa; it is a partnership to be built with Africans.
Critically, African agency must remain central. Cooperation between the UK and the EU should not recreate old hierarchies or proxy competitions. It should support African strategies, institutions, and ambitions, on terms defined by African governments, businesses, and civil society. The aim is not alignment for alignment’s sake, but coherence where it adds value and restraint where it does not.
Erasmus+ therefore deserves to be read as a template, not an exception. If Britain and Europe can relearn how to cooperate on students and skills, they can do the same on research, climate, health security, and Africa’s economic transformation. The recent re-association with research programmes, the resumption of structured dialogues, and now Erasmus+ together suggest a pattern: a mosaic of practical agreements that rebuild trust piece by piece.
For those of us who opposed Brexit but accept its democratic legitimacy, this approach is both principled and pragmatic. It neither denies the past nor surrenders the future. It recognises that politics is the art of the possible. And that what is possible expands when cooperation delivers results. A reset worthy of the name does not seek to relive the arguments of 2016. It seeks to govern responsibly in the world of 2026.
Brexit was a rupture. Erasmus+ is repair. And repair, when done patiently, often lasts longer than what was broken in haste. Europe’s future will not be shaped by who won Brexit, but by who learned from it within Europe and beyond.
