Labour paying £8 BILLION to open Britain’s doors to tens of thousands by rejoining EU scheme

While this was the fee proposed for a one-year membership, Brussels plans to increase funding for the scheme by more than 50 per cent, from around €26billion to €41billion, from 2028.

When combined with extra costs associated with joining EU programmes after Brexit, this means the bloc could charge Britain £1.25billion a year between 2028 and 2034, reports The Telegraph.

The UK left the scheme under Boris Johnson, who argued it did not offer value for money.

Downing Street insisted it is "a good deal", while declining to deny reports the UK had pushed for a larger reduction in fees.

They said: "As with every area of international engagement, pushed for the best deal for the British people."

Of the £570million fee, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: "The UK will receive most of that money back to distribute amongst the UK beneficiaries."

The Downing Street spokesman continued: "We will also have the opportunity to compete for grants from a £1billion central pot directly managed by the European Commission."

Former Tory Brexit negotiator Lord Frost said: "The Government has done what it always does make a concession up front and sort out the consequences later.

"They pay an inflated amount to get back into Erasmus for one year, they won’t then want to leave again, so they will end up paying whatever the EU wants for the next seven years.

"The truth is, of course, they just want to be liked by the EU and don’t care what price they have to pay."

Polling from YouGov found 65 per cent of people support rejoining the scheme, while only 12 per cent oppose.

The polling of 7,352 people, found 38 per cent of people strongly support rejoining the scheme, compared to just six per cent who strongly oppose.

Breaking it down by voting intention, 85 per cent of Liberal Democrat voters and 81 per cent of Labour voters support rejoining the scheme, compared to 57 per cent of Conservative voters and 40 per cent of Reform UK voters.

According to the poll, 33 per cent of Reform voters and 21 per cent of Tory voters oppose rejoining the scheme.

Paymaster General Nick Thomas-Symonds rejected concerns the Labour Government is "trying to reverse Brexit" with the plan to rejoin the scheme.

He told GB News: "What we're actually doing here is delivering, and this is a really exciting announcement today.

"Because what we are talking about here, it's not only students at universities that are going to benefit from our accession to Erasmus+ in 2027, we're talking about our further education sector as well.

"So an engineering apprentice who might want to spend between two months and 12 months overseas, we're talking about the potential for youth work.

"We're talking about sports exchanges. We're talking about staff who are able to go overseas to develop themselves professionally. We're talking about adult learners."

He added: "So this is a real opportunity for tens of thousands of people to be able to broaden their horizons.

"I'm proud to have negotiated this, and I am determined now that as we take this forward, this will be open to people irrespective of what their background is."

Under Mr Johnson, the UK pulled out of Erasmus, launching the Turing Scheme as a domestic alternative, arguing that remaining in the EU scheme would have meant a net cost of £2billion over seven years.

Sir Keir’s spokesman said details on the fate of the Turing scheme will be shared "in due course" when asked whether it could be scrapped.