Sadiq Khan to claim ‘hard-line’ Brexit has cost the capital 300,000 jobs
Sadiq Khan is set to warn Brexit has hit London’s jobs market, claiming almost 300,000 fewer positions are available in the capital thanks to the UK’s exit from the European Union.
Khan will make the claims at a glitzy dinner at the Mansion House this evening.
Half of these losses are in construction and financial services, down 81,000 and 92,000 in London respectively, new analysis released alongside his speech suggests.
The mayor of London is also expected to highlight the claim that the average Londoner was nearly £3,400 worse off last year due to Brexit, and the average Brit by £2,000, according to a report with Cambridge Econometrics.
While across the UK as a whole, they found, there are close to two million fewer jobs overall as a result of the nation’s exit from the European Union.
In his keynote address, Khan : “It’s now obvious that Brexit isn’t working.
“The hard-line version of Brexit we’ve ended up with is dragging our economy down and pushing up the cost of living… and having an ongoing detrimental impact on industries that are crucial to our success – such as hospitality, construction and financial services.”
Khan will add: “Part of being the mayor of London is about standing up for our city.
“We’ve got to be frank: Brexit is simply not a peripheral concern that we can leave in the past.
“It’s a key contributor to the cost-of-living crisis right now and resulting in lost opportunities, lost business and lost income at a time when people and companies can least afford it.”
The mayor will urge the government to take a “mature” approach to working closer with the EU in a bid to “turbocharge our economy” and “unlock the growth and prosperity we need”.
The report also suggested the UK economy is almost £140bn smaller because of Brexit, with London’s economy shrinking by over £30bn.
And researchers warned worsening economic damage could wipe more than £300bn off the UK’s economy by 2035, with more than £60bn removed from London’s economy.
Other economists have taken a different view.
One widely-cited study into financial services jobs post-Brexit suggests that Canada lost only 7,000 jobs as a result of the UK’s departure from the EU.