Is the government engaged in a campaign by stealth to return the UK to membership of the EU? It couldn’t make a better job of it if it was trying. This morning comes the news that Britain is to rejoin the Erasmus scheme, which offers students the opportunity to engage in an exchange with other European universities. The scheme was discontinued when Britain left the EU, but it will now be reintroduced for the 2027/28 academic year, when the government says that 100,000 students could benefit.

It is easy to make a case for a scheme that gives students chance to study abroad – the ‘travel broadens the mind’ argument. It is also possible to make a case against it by arguing that many of those who engage in student exchange programmes are perhaps less drawn by the chance to broaden their intellectual........

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