The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, will today (Wednesday 5 April) urge business leaders and representatives from cities across Europe to join him in calling on European political leaders and EU negotiators to ensure that the Brexit negotiations are conducted in the best interests of their cities and businesses.
The Mayor and the London Chamber of Commerce will welcome European business leaders to City Hall for a summit to discuss Brexit. At the summit Sadiq will address the Alliance of European Metropolitan Chambers, which represents hundreds of thousands of businesses from across Europe. His speech will set out why the continued success of cities in the UK and Europe depends on:
- avoiding a so called ‘hard Brexit’ and securing the best possible Brexit deal that works in the best interests of London, the UK and Europe
- instilling confidence that London will always be open for people and business
- increasing collaborations and fostering new business links between London and European cities.
The Mayor will also tell the collected business leaders that he’s in ‘no doubt it’s possible to secure a sensible Brexit deal that protects jobs, growth and investment across the continent’. He will argue that ‘growth need not be a zero-sum game’ for cities across Europe and warn that the idea that some European cities might benefit in the form of jobs, businesses and transactions moving away from London is ‘misguided’.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “It’s clear that a bad Brexit deal that hurts London would hurt the European Union and businesses across Europe too. It would cut Europe off from its only truly globally competitive financial centre and would be a lose-lose situation – for jobs, growth and living standards across Europe.
“My message to businesses across Europe is not only that London will always be open for business, investment and talent, but that they should join me in calling on European political leaders to ensure that the Brexit negotiations are conducted in the best interests of London, the UK and cities and countries across Europe.
“I’m in no doubt that it’s possible to secure a sensible Brexit deal that protects jobs, growth and investment across the continent. The notion that our cities should only compete with each other – or that European cities might benefit in the form of jobs, businesses and transactions moving away from London – is misguided.
“Growth need not be a zero-sum game for our cities. London’s global competitiveness supports the competitiveness of businesses in Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid - and all of Europe’s great cities. And the damage of financial business moving away from London and Europe to New York, Hong Kong and Singapore would be bad for us all.
“Despite Brexit, I’m optimistic about London’s future and our place as the best city in the world to do business. I want businesses across Europe to know that they will always be welcome here and, now more than ever, we should be increasing our collaborations and fostering new business links that will benefit all of us. The truth is that London will always remain a key partner for European cities and countries long after Brexit is resolved.”
The summit comes just one week after the Mayor met key European and EU leaders in Brussels and Paris. Sadiq held high-level meetings with several senior politicians in Brussels last Tuesday, including the President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, the European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, and the Mayor of Brussels, Yvan Mayeur. He also spoke from London with the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, on Friday 31 March.
In a keynote speech at a conference in Brussels staged by Politico, the day before Theresa May triggered Article 50, he declared that it is not in the European Union’s best interest to ‘punish’ Britain through the Brexit negotiations.
The following day in Paris, he held discussions with the Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, and candidate who is favourite to be the next French president, Emmanuel Macron.