This is just a glimmer of light at the end of a long, dark Brexit tunnel. But in the middle of winter, frankly, we’ll take what we can get. That’s why Sadiq Khan’s support over the weekend for a new “youth mobility” deal with the EU (a sort of pre-Brexit-style right for young people to work and study abroad, with reciprocal rights for young Europeans here) will have been fueled. a spark of hope long forgotten for many.
The longing to hear someone admit that Brexit has damaged this country and that the damage must be urgently repaired is so strong you could almost touch it in some places. For more than seven years, Remainers have become fed up with being told to respect the leave’s always razor-thin mandate, especially now that 51% of Britons (and 61% of Londoners, according to YouGov) would vote to rejoin the EU He stated that they were given a chance and 42% of them at least wanted to re-enter the single market. What Khan said is therefore a classic example of something Labor still has no courage to say at a national level but is increasingly in danger of being punished. Negative We sing it in places like London.
The capital is not only comfortable with immigration from Europe; Built on this, it takes a constant stream of young people from around the world not only to staff its cafes, restaurants, hospitals and schools, but also to make it feel like it. The cosmopolitan place he has always been proud of. Universities in London were a honeypot for Europeans before Brexit; London’s tech sector needs their skills, the city needs their jobs; So why should he have to go quietly towards something estimated to have cost capital around £30bn so far?
But if Khan’s government statement on Brexit struck some as a simultaneous attack on his own party’s slowly growing caution, that was a misreading of what he was trying to do when taking questions from a Fabian Society audience at the weekend. Similarly, the idea that this is some kind of choreographed dipping of Labor’s toes into the reunification waters is very wrong. The mayor has never hidden his views on Europe; He has been advocating for Britain to rejoin the customs union for years and is not calling for a loosening of the reins on freedom of movement across the country.
Relating to: Sadiq Khan: ‘Save young people from Brexit work and travel ban’
Friends say he understands very well that other parts of the country don’t see it the way Londoners do: he just wants the flexibility to do what he thinks the capital needs, possibly through a new visa scheme that could be introduced without the need for any visas. Reopen the Brexit deal. However unlikely it is that this will happen, it certainly won’t hurt him to talk about the idea ahead of May’s London elections; This may be trickier than it seems, given the number of natural Labor voters angered by the party’s stance on Gaza. .
But he must know as well as anyone why Keir Starmer remains coy on an issue on which Labor has been repeatedly bitten by voters. Even a region- or sector-specific visa scheme (easier said than designed in practice) is likely to increase immigration numbers across the country; This is always a sensitive issue in parts of the country where Labor is desperate to win back seats. And it doesn’t take long for the Conservative Party to start claiming that Labor is secretly trying to drag the country back into the EU, as party chairman Richard Holden did the moment Khan spoke (though frankly luck would be a good thing).
However, with all that said, there is a long but always testy tradition of city mayors pushing progressive boundaries further than national governments are comfortable with, but the rest of the country is discovering it can live surprisingly comfortably with the results. Consider that Ken Livingstone allowed same-sex couples to officially register their union in 2001, paving the way for equal marriage rights that no longer raise an eyebrow. What London wants today, central England is often reluctantly ready to accept tomorrow.
There is something particularly poignant in calling for the restoration of freedom of movement for young people, whose horizons have been brutally narrowed in recent years; the first due to Brexit and the second due to a pandemic that hit just at the age when they should have been out exploring. World. Frankly, they deserved a break. And so, after seven years of being called snobs, fearmongers, and enemies of the people, there are laggards everywhere.
Whether intentional or not, Khan gave the remainers what they needed at the start of an election year, which means someone’s got it. However, if anyone understands the impulse to be free, to carve out your own economic destiny unhindered by people with whom you fundamentally disagree – well, shouldn’t it be the leavers?