27 October 2016

The Guardian: Sadiq Khan warns hard Brexit will cost millions of jobs across UK

London mayor told a City of London banquet that leaving the single market is economic self-sabotage as policy chief admitted job losses inevitable. City of London Corporation's Boleat named New York as "the biggest beneficiary" of banking shifts.

[...] Sadiq Khan told business leaders that the vote for Brexit did not mean the government needed to choose a route of “economic self-sabotage” and urged Theresa May to approach the UK’s departure from the EU with more pragmatism.

“If the proper agreements aren’t negotiated, there will be serious knock-on impacts with jobs and billions of revenue lost – something that would hit the entire country, not just London,” Khan told a City of London Corporation banquet at the Museum of London on Thursday evening. [...]

“If the government continues with a reckless hard-headed, hard-nosed, hard Brexit approach, and we end up losing access to the single market that helps make our financial services industry a world leader, the impact would ripple out far and wide,” Khan said.

Khan spoke alongside Mark Boleat, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation local authority. Boleat acknowledged that it is inevitable that jobs will be lost.

“To the extent that some activities will no longer be able to be conducted from London, there needs to be suitable transition arrangements so that there is not unnecessary harm to employment and the economy generally,” Boleat said.

“And it is not a question of the number of jobs being lost in the UK being matched by jobs gained elsewhere in the EU 27. It is already apparent that the biggest beneficiary of any job losses in the UK will be New York, and some employment will simply stop as the volume of business can no longer be supported by the higher costs.”

Khan also warned that Brexit could actually lead to businesses being more likely to move to New York, Singapore and Hong Kong than to other cities in Europe. Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor of the Bank of England, has also warned that remaining EU members may not catch the fallout from the City. [...]

Full article on The Guardian

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