London’s anti-Brexit progressive mayor, Sadiq Khan, has called for a “pragmatic” debate to once again take place in Britain on the topic of rejoining the EU Single Market, with its associated Free Movement migration regime.
Sadiq Khan, the leftist Mayor of London, has demanded that a “pragmatic” debate take place in Britain on the topic of rejoining the European Union’s Single Market.
It comes as many figures within even Khan’s own Labour Party have abandoned any aspirations of reversing Brexit — officially, at least — with opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer claiming he will “make Brexit work” should the party gain power.
Such an approach does not seem to be of any interest to the London mayor, however, with the politician once again calling for a debate on rejoining a key EU institution.
“Ministers seem to have developed selective amnesia when it comes to one of the root causes of our problems,” Khan claimed on Thursday according to a report by The Telegraph.
“Brexit can’t be airbrushed out of history or the consequences wished away,” he continued. “We need greater alignment with our European neighbours – a shift from this extreme, hard Brexit we have now to a workable version that serves our economy and people.”
“That includes having a pragmatic debate about the benefits of being a part of the Customs Union and the Single Market,” he went on to say.
Such a move would see the EU back in control of Great Britain’s international trade policy, tariffs, regulatory regime, and to a great extent its border controls, as Free Movement migration is a key pillar of the Single Market.
Despite Khan’s claim that Brexit is doing “immense damage” to Britain, it appears that Khan is drifting ever further into the minority in suggesting that any backtracking on Britain leaving the EU would be a good idea.
For instance, while the last year for Britain has been far from an economic cakewalk, it has also seen the European Union flounder, partly under the weight of its own green agenda policies, which contributed to the current energy crisis plaguing the bloc.
These difficulties have even seen some of the United Kingdom’s more anti-Brexit figures abandon any notion of rejoining the EU or its Single Market, with Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, as mentioned previously, vowing to “make Brexit work” should he be elected Prime Minister in the future.
“Trade has gone down because the deal we have got is not a very good deal,” he claimed, criticising the arrangements put in place by the Tory government.
“I think we could move from getting Brexit done, which is all that we have managed at the moment, to making Brexit work,” Sir Keir continued.
“But do I think that going back into years of wrangling, years of uncertainty, is going to help our economy? No, I don’t. I spent many years post-2016 talking to businesses who said to me over and over again, the thing that’s hardest for us is all the uncertainty.”
“That really, for many years, held us back, and I don’t want to go back to that,” he added.