Brexit and rural social entrepreneurship in the UK

The European population is ageing: among European Union (EU) nations, including Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom (UK), the proportion of those aged 65 and over increased from 15.8 per cent in 2001 to 19.7 per cent in 2018. In this chapter, we reflect on our experiences of being a part of an EU-funded project called Older People for Older People (O4O). O4O aimed to harness the energy, expertise, and capacity of older people to set up community social enterprises that would address the service needs of older people in their local area. We draw on the lessons learnt from the EU-funded O4O project with the aim to discuss potential consequences of Brexit on rural social entrepreneurship. Thus, we show the importance of EU funding in facilitating rural social entrepreneurship, not least in underpinning the necessary gathering together of relevant stakeholders and capacity building. We question whether Brexit has created a gap in programmes with a specific focus on peripheral rural communities, funding to support rural social entrepreneurship, and the loss of opportunities for international knowledge exchange.