“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main,” a Brit declared in 1624.

While euroscepticism and isolationism were hardly salient concepts in the age of John Donne, his words have often been repeated in the modern day as an ode to international cooperation. Yet in the UK an island mentality runs rife.

The narrow body of water separating the UK from the rest of the European continent has played a significant role in the formation of our national identity. The UK may be unable to physically leave the continent, yet the British hardly consider themselves European. As a German friend once pointed out to me, the UK lacks the emotional connection to the EU that other Europeans possess. The Brexit debate largely consisted of attempts to pit the pros and cons of EU membership against each other. Debates repeated buzzwords like tariffs, migration, and market access, without reflecting on the true origins, and biggest success, of the European project: keeping peace on the continent.

“The UK is paying the price for its island mentality”

Now, ten years after the Brexit referendum, the UK is paying the price for its island mentality. As global challenges intensify, international cooperation is the only advantageous solution, making the 2020s a less than ideal time to be isolated from our European neighbours.

However, there are signs that the UK-EU relationship is on the mend, one of which being the announcement that the UK will be rejoining the Erasmus+ exchange programme from 2027. This has been widely praised in the UK and EU, both for the academic opportunities it entails and for the chance it gives British students to expand their world view. Considering that Brexit voters were far less likely to have travelled abroad or socialised with someone from another country over the previous six months, international exchange programmes may be an important tool in combatting the UK’s island mentality.

“Studying abroad offers a unique opportunity to discover new cultures and build connections with people from all over the world”

Studying abroad offers a unique opportunity to discover new cultures and build connections with people from all over the world, showing students just how interconnected the world truly is. As a self-proclaimed ‘study abroad veteran’, having completed my undergraduate degree abroad, and taken part in an Erasmus exchange (as well as numerous school exchange programmes and language school placements), I am the first to say that these international opportunities have taught me just as much about the world as I have learnt in a classroom. They have fundamentally shaped who I am. Therefore, although rejoining Erasmus+ is certainly a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough. Erasmus+ predominantly benefits university students, and in Cambridge’s case predominantly MML students, meaning that only a minority will benefit. If we truly want to broaden our horizons, exchange programmes should also gain a place in secondary education.

Only a third of British secondary schools offer exchange programmes, largely due to financial pressures and greater safeguarding requirements, and state schools are half as likely as private schools to offer such opportunities. However, what is perhaps most pertinent is that a quarter of schools not offering exchange programmes used to offer them in the past, suggesting that the school exchange is dying out in the UK, with state school pupils becoming particularly disadvantaged.

This is doing both students and the UK a disservice. School exchange programmes are a key opportunity to inspire language learning, a clear area for improvement in the UK given its current shortcomings  cost the economy an estimated £48 billion per year. Meanwhile, the cultural immersion of exchanges, in contrast to a regular tourist visit, heightens adaptability and intercultural communication – skills of high significance in a globalised world.

The main advantage of studying abroad however, is perhaps the most basic: gaining the knowledge that while people do things differently elsewhere, we ultimately have more in common than divides us. Such a simple but significant lesson can hardly be learnt by staying on an island.