Too young to vote, but not too young to understand that a decision was being made that would affect the rest of my life. In many ways, Brexit was my political awakening. It taught me that politics matters, because decisions made by people in power can change your future before you’ve even been given a say.
Ten years later, my generation is living with that decision. We lost the automatic right to live, work and study freely across 27 other countries. Opportunities previous generations took for granted are now more complicated, more expensive or completely out of reach.
But with a new prime minister who has a recorded history of stating that we should rejoin the EU, perhaps we can start to hope. If you have money, many of these barriers can be overcome. You are better able to cope with the extra costs, paperwork and bureaucracy involved in moving abroad.
Someone from a wealthy family can afford more expensive routes to studying or living overseas. But what about everyone else? Freedom of movement wasn’t just a nice perk for people who could already afford to travel.
For working-class young people like me, it meant opportunity. It was the possibility of studying in Paris, working in Berlin, or falling in love in Barcelona and building a life there. It was about experiencing different cultures, learning languages and feeling part of something bigger.
Young people are already facing a difficult economic future. Housing is increasingly unaffordable, wages haven’t kept pace with costs and many of us wonder whether we’ll ever have the security our parents got to enjoy. The median income for those aged 25 and under has not increased for two decades.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
