London Mayor Sadiq Khan has called for youth to be freed from Brexit and travel restrictions. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has called for young people to be able to move freely in and out of the European Union for the first time since Brexit to reduce the economic and cultural damage caused by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. .
The demand is seen as the most important by a senior Labor politician since the 2016 referendum. The Home Office has said it is looking at the possibility of some form of youth mobility scheme. Speaking to The Observer In doing so, Sadiq Khan said he supports either a pre-agreed deal with EU countries on “youth mobility” or changes to post-Brexit visa rules that are currently restrictive.
His remarks suggest Labour, under the leadership of Sadiq Khan, will run a strongly pro-European, anti-Brexit campaign for the mayoral election in the capital in May. . While not advocating rejoining the EU, Sadiq Khan has previously called for a “pragmatic debate” on whether Britain should rejoin the single market and customs union when the terms of a Brexit deal are renegotiated in 2025. will A Labor source has said he thinks Sadiq Khan’s people are aware of the majority of anti-Brexit voters in London and understandably want to appeal to them. According to The Observer, sources close to the mayor said that around 1.2 million people from EU countries were eligible to vote in the mayoral race.
Recent polls show most people now see Brexit as a failure and favor closer ties with the growing EU. Sadiq Khan says the capital has been particularly hard hit. Brexit has hit the whole of London and it is young people who are in many ways the most affected. Not only is it more difficult for young people to go abroad for work, but the government’s ill-advised decision to drop the Erasmus scheme has also made it difficult for students to study abroad. He is clear that he will support a youth mobility scheme that will benefit us economically, culturally and socially.
Although the UK may no longer be part of the European Union, London is and always will be a European city. Sadiq Khan wants new rules to allow young people to study, travel and fill positions in key sectors of the economy. This would apply to Londoners wanting to move to EU countries and young EU citizens wanting to come to London. Last July, former Tory cabinet minister and leading Brexiteer George Eustice backed a similar idea, Rishi Sunak said. called on the government to immediately start bilateral negotiations with EU countries with the aim of giving young Europeans under the age of 35 the right to a two-year visa to work. This country. Eustice said the deals should be reciprocal so that young UK nationals under the age of 35 can live and work for two years in the same EU member states with which the deals were made.
He said it would be part of a much-needed “post-Brexit rapprochement” with our European neighbors. is, which has historically depended on EU workers who do not meet visa criteria under the new points-based immigration scheme. The hospitality sector has seen the biggest drop in workers since the pandemic. Naomi Smith, chief executive of international think tank Best for Britain, said her organisation’s poll showed clear support for such a move as more people concluded Brexit would limit young people’s life chances. is doing and damaging the economy, he said, winning a joint youth mobility scheme with the EU that would give young Britons the chance to live, work and travel across the continent when That for UK businesses, which still suffer from severe labor shortages, has been made worse by Brexit. Charles Owen, managing director of Seasonal Businesses in Travel, a trade body which represents many holiday companies, said the UK had some of the best pubs, clubs, hotels and restaurants in the world but the pandemic, rising food prices and , the energy crisis and labor shortage have adversely affected the industry.
A youth mobility scheme is no magic bullet but it could relieve some of the pressure on labor shortages and save some from downing their shutters. Meanwhile, a recent independent report by analysts Cambridge Econometrics, commissioned by City Hall, shows there would have been 290,000 fewer jobs in London had Brexit not happened, with half of the 2 million job losses across the country in financial services. And happened in construction sectors. The report found that the average Briton was almost £2,000 worse off in 2023, while Londoners were almost £3,400 worse off last year as a result of Brexit. It also calculates that there are around 2 million fewer jobs in the UK overall due to Brexit, with around 3 in the capital alone.
