Far-left Mayor of London Sadiq Khan declared that London needs “more migrants” and that the government should give cities the power to set their own immigration policies.
“I have no hesitation at all saying that we need more migrants in London, ” Kahn told Channel 4, going on to claim that there were social and cultural benefits to the city through mass migration.
Khan went on to claim that there are shortages of labour and skill within the British capital, particularly in areas such as the healthcare system, social care, tech, and hospitality.
Interestingly, while the Conservative government has overseen record waves of migration following Brexit, the hospitality sector has been one of the few sectors to have its labour supply actually restricted, which has resulted in native hospitality workers seeing their wages grow at a significantly faster pace than the national average.
In his interview with Channel 4, the far-left mayor went on to suggest that the government give local authorities, such as himself, the power to determine their own immigration policies.
“Devolve to cities like London, the powers to have a regional shortage occupation list, so I can be in charge of deciding how many people come to London to help our economy,” Khan said.
Khan said that there the “pipeline” of training Londoners for jobs would be insufficient in covering the needed supply of workers, which he claimed could only be filled by foreign labour, despite it presumably being easier to recruit workers from different parts of the UK rather than from abroad.
The importation of foreign workers is often preferable to the business class, however, given that they are often willing to work for less than the native population. People from migrant backgrounds are far more likely to vote for the left-wing Labour Party, which might be a consideration for Khan, who is facing a tough re-election battle coming up next year.
Khan has come under fire recently for his plan to extend the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) to the whole of London, which would heavily penalise working-class commuters and others who need to travel into London for their jobs.
The leftist mayor, who came into power in 2014, has also come under criticism for his failures to tackle crime in the British capital, with over 100 homicides being recorded in every year that he has been in office. Last year, there were 109 homicides in London, 69 of which were fatal stabbings and 14 of which saw a teenager die.
During his time in office, London, like many other cities in Britain, has seen a significant demographic shift, with the capital standing alongside Birmingham, Lutton, and Leicester as cities in the UK in which the native white British population is now a minority, according to the 2021 census.
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