{"id":853196,"date":"2026-03-27T06:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T06:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/853196\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T06:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T06:03:18","slug":"brexit-tragedy-way-out-flagged-by-london-mayor-sadiq-khan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/853196\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit tragedy way out flagged by London Mayor Sadiq Khan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Brexit has been very much in the spotlight over the last couple of weeks, with Labour Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan<\/a> and Chancellor Rachel Reeves<\/a> highlighting the damage done.\n<\/p>\n

\n However, while both were robust and direct in their comments, when it came to what should happen next there was quite the contrast.\n<\/p>\n

\n Sir Sadiq, in an interview with Italian newspaper la Repubblica published on Thursday last week, made it crystal clear what he thought should happen and when.\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Reeves, who is obviously hemmed in by Labour\u2019s red lines of not rejoining the European Union, single market or even the customs union, was notably but not surprisingly bereft of any plan to mitigate the Brexit damage in a major way in her Mais lecture last week.\n<\/p>\n

\n And Jill Rutter, a senior fellow of the Institute for Government independent think-tank who has written extensively on Brexit, this week declared: \u201cWhile both Prime Minister and Chancellor are speaking with new-found warmth towards the EU, it is debatable whether any progress has been made.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Reeves said in her Mais lecture at Bayes Business School in London on Tuesday last week: \u201cBrexit created profound uncertainty, raised new barriers to trade, and leaves Britain facing an\u00a0additional\u00a0danger today:\u00a0\u00a0the risk that we find ourselves stranded between powerful trading blocs, as\u00a0globalisation\u00a0retreats.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Later in the speech, she declared: \u201cThis Government is already making\u00a0significant progress\u00a0on our relationship with the European Union on agrifood,\u00a0electricity,\u00a0emissions trading, and Erasmus.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut Brexit did deep damage.\u00a0Recent independent studies\u00a0indicate\u00a0its GDP impacts could be as much as 8%.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt has meant higher costs for businesses, and\u00a0therefore\u2026higher costs in our\u00a0shops.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0meant shrinking markets for UK exporters, and our strategic industries exposed, as protectionist barriers rise.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n It is good to hear the Chancellor highlight the huge damage from Brexit \u2013 underlined by that colossal \u201cas much as 8%\u201d of gross domestic product quantum for the impact.\n<\/p>\n

\n The tiresome \u201cBrexit is done and we must move on\u201d mantra of the Leavers has always rung extraordinarily hollow.\n<\/p>\n

\n And it most certainly continues to do so, with Labour clearly having shaken off some of its timidity when it has come to telling the likes of the red-wall voters who swept Boris Johnson to victory in December 2019 just what is what.\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Reeves did declare \u201cno trade deal with any individual nation can outweigh the importance of our relationship to a bloc with which we share a land border, with which our supply chains are closely\u00a0intertwined\u201d, and talked constructively about regulatory alignment with the EU.\n<\/p>\n

\n That said, Labour\u2019s red lines remain utterly demoralising.\n<\/p>\n

\n Sir Sadiq, for his part, made absolutely no bones about his opposition to these red lines.\n<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n He told la Repubblica: \u201cI see on a daily basis the damage Brexit has done to not just London, but Londoners, the damage economically, socially and culturally. And I’m quite clear in terms of what needs to happen, which is, I do think we should join the European Union.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n He went on to advocate \u201ca five-stage process, in relation to this\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

\n Sir Sadiq said: \u201cNumber one, we should reset relations with the EU, and that’s done. Tick. Number two, we should have closer alignment, and the Chancellor this week has talked about closer alignment, sector by sector, and only diverge in exceptional circumstances. So we basically have to take the next three steps that are incredibly important.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cStep three, we should rejoin the customs union this parliament. Any trade agreement is less good than the customs union. And then step four, we should rejoin the single market. We should try and do this during this parliament. And then we should, as a Labour Party, fight the next general election with a clear manifesto commitment: a vote for Labour means we would rejoin the European Union. I think it’s inevitable. Why do I say that? Because we’ve seen the damage it’s done, but also we’ve seen the promises made by the Brexiteers have been exposed. There is no additional \u00a3350 million every week going to the NHS, families are suffering, businesses are suffering, the country is suffering. This is quite extraordinary.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The Mayor of London was then asked by la Repubblica if he thought the Labour Party should commit for the next election to rejoin the EU, without a second referendum.\n<\/p>\n

\n And he was \u201cquite clear\u201d too in his response to this question.\n<\/p>\n

\n Sir Sadiq said: \u201cThis parliament, we should rejoin the customs union and single market. I’m quite clear. On the ballot paper of the next general election is a vote for Labour, a vote to rejoin the European Union, and we should be unequivocal about the benefits of the European Union because we’ve now seen the alternative. We’ve now seen what happens when you’re outside the European Union: less investment in the UK, less exports to the European Union.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut let me speak from experience. You know, since 2019, and it breaks my heart, I’ve seen Londoners who are EU nationals leaving London. We had in 2019 more than 840,000 EU Londoners working in London. That’s gone down to now 700,000, that means 140k Londoners have left London, and the two biggest sectors they’ve left concern construction and hospitality. And these are Romanians, Polish, Italian, French, Irish Londoners, who’ve left their friends. They’ve left their neighbours. As a consequence, we’ve suffered economically, in construction, hospitality, but also we’ve suffered socially and culturally as well.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Sir Sadiq was also forthright when asked if he had personally discussed this topic with the Prime Minister, who we should remember was a vociferous and eloquent opponent of Brexit in late 2019 but is these days continuing to highlight Labour\u2019s \u201cred lines\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Mayor of London replied to la Repubblica as follows: \u201cNo, he’s busy being Prime Minister. I’m busy being Mayor. But the next time I speak to him, and he knows my views, he knows that I’m somebody who’s still heartbroken about leaving the European Union. You’re weaker without the UK. I think it’s in nobody’s interest for either side, you know, to play hardball for the sake of incremental benefits. Get us back inside the club, back inside the European Union, and let’s be stronger together.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Given its dreadful impact and the UK\u2019s economic malaise, it should be of no surprise to anyone that Brexit remains a huge issue.\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Rutter\u2019s reflections on the current state of play, in an article published by the Institute for Government on Wednesday, were eye-catching.\n<\/p>\n

\n She declared: \u201cShortly after Reeves spoke, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, went much further and called for the UK to join the single market and a customs union this parliament – with Labour campaigning to rejoin, with no referendum, at the next general election. Reeves herself used a much higher figure than the OBR\u2019s (Office for Budget Responsibility\u2019s) for the costs of Brexit – 8% not 4% long-term cost, suggesting a much more fundamental problem than can simply be fixed by tweaking Boris Johnson\u2019s \u2018botched Brexit\u2019.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAs Labour wakes up to the loss of support to the Greens – a potent threat in London elections – the Government may find itself pulled into ever greater reset ambition. Some in the EU would welcome this, while others would have less time for UK exceptionalism and are agitating for EU-first policies which risk worsening the UK\u2019s position.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Rutter concluded: \u201cThe past year shows it is easier to up the rhetoric than to deliver results. The past week suggests that 2029 could be another Brexit election.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n It certainly did seem notable that Ms Reeves chose to highlight the damage from Brexit so directly.\n<\/p>\n

\n The big question is whether the Labour Government will feel inclined to move from albeit now far more direct and realistic talk about Brexit\u2019s effects to actually tackling the damage in a serious way, something which would mean obliterating its own red lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brexit has been very much in the spotlight over the last couple of weeks, with Labour Mayor of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-853196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116299628848753159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}