A GB News guest has warned Labour is quietly laying the groundwork for a “major drive to rejoin the European Union” within the next few years, despite repeated pledges that Brexit will not be reversed.
Pointing to plans for a youth mobility scheme, rejoining the Erasmus programme and closer alignment on EU carbon pricing and food standards, he said Britain risks becoming a “captive market” for Brussels.
The Government has confirmed the UK will rejoin the Erasmus programme from 2027, allowing students to study in an EU country for up to a year.
Britain withdrew from the scheme in 2020 as part of its post-Brexit trade agreement, replacing it with the Turing Scheme.
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Speaking to The People's Channel, Fred De Fossard, Director of Strategy at the Prosperity Institute, said: "More students went to Italy under the Turing Scheme than British students went to Italy under the Erasmus scheme.
"So, I mean, is this deliberate misinformation? Is it deliberate dishonesty? Is it ignorance?
"It’s an insane way to justify a policy which, as some journalists and analysts have said, will amount to more British money being spent on the Erasmus scheme per year than on the entirety of budgets for British universities per year."
GB News host Dawn Neesom asked: "Have we been sold to the EU? Just literally handed a piece of paper and gone, sign this, give us a cheque?"
Fred De Fossard warned this is a push to rejoin the EU
|GB NEWS
He responded: "I mean, I think so. The European Union, since Brexit, has taken a particular view, in my opinion, towards the UK. They would like Britain to become a captive market for the EU’s export goods."
Under a new trade deal that was agreed earlier this year the UK has agreed to dynamically align with EU sanitary and phytosanitary rules, food safety and general consumer protection standards covering the production, distribution and consumption of agri-food products.
The agreement also applies to the regulation of live animals and pesticides, rules on organic produce, and marketing standards for certain sectors and products.
Mr De Fossard: "We're signing up to a food standards agreement, which will ultimately mean that food standards and how farms in Britain are regulated will be set in Brussels.
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European students will be able to spend a year studying in Britain as part of their degree | GETTY
"It probably means that we will have to pay into European food standard regulators' budgets. So again, that's more British money going to Brussels.
"But it also might mean that European inspectors will ferret around British farms. So again, this shows how the EU wants to approach Britain.
"They want to treat us as a captive market next to them, take our money away from us and then send their surplus youth unemployment, which their youth unemployment is very high, as we all know to the UK."
He added: "He said we wouldn't join Erasmus. We now are joining Erasmus. I think this is about building up to 2026, a huge push for a rejoin of the European Union."
The move comes just weeks after Sir Keir Starmer openly called for Britain to establish closer ties with Brussels.
During talks with the EU, the Prime Minister said he was prepared to make "trade-offs" in a bid to build stronger relations with the bloc.
It is understood the Government has been offered a 30 per cent reduction in membership fees from Brussels in a bid to get the deal over the line.
Educational establishments have praised the move, with Whitehall sources saying it will benefit both students and higher education institutions.
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