Sadiq Khan has backed the prime minister's promise to rethink Britain's relationship with the EU, arguing that Labour must immediately start making the case for rejoining the bloc so it can fight and win a general election with EU membership on the ballot paper in 2029.
Writing after Andy Burnham's conference speech, the mayor of London said the prime minister's words were simple but stark: “Brexit has done more harm than good.” Khan said Burnham is right, and that the reality of the vote's impact on the UK is sobering.
Economic damage from Brexit
Research commissioned by City Hall in 2024 showed that London's economy was £30bn smaller than it would have been without Brexit and that there were nearly 2m fewer jobs overall in the UK as a result of leaving. Earlier this year, new analysis set out that the country has grown more slowly than comparable European counterparts since 2016. If that trend continues, the economy could be £250bn smaller than similar EU countries' by 2030.
Ten years after the referendum, the sunlit uplands promised by the Brexiters have proven to be a total fiction, Khan said, with Britain battling an economic and geopolitical storm.
Geopolitical storm and the case for Europe
Khan warned that Donald Trump's bombing of Iran could have catastrophic consequences for Londoners, and said the conflict is sending shock waves through the global economy, hiking up mortgage costs and pushing up fuel prices. The price of diesel has hit an all-time high at nearly £2 per litre, while energy bills are forecast to rise 25% this winter.
At the same time, Trump's fondness for unilateralism has shaken the foundations of the transatlantic alliance, and his unpredictable actions and unsettling ambivalence towards European security can no longer be ignored as Vladimir Putin persists with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The EU is Britain's biggest trading partner and most reliable ally, Khan said. At the UK-EU summit in November, he said he will call on the government to lay the groundwork for Britain's swift return to both the customs union and the single market – a move that should happen within this parliament.
Long-term ambition and a louder voice
Rejoining the customs union and the single market would deliver an immediate boost to economic growth, improving living standards and helping to grant Londoners some respite from cost of living pressures. In the long term, Khan said, ambitions must be raised higher still, with the party immediately starting to make the case for rejoining the EU.
Leaving the EU was the biggest act of economic and geopolitical self-harm in the country's history, and rejoining is the only viable path to long-term prosperity and security, he said. He noted that in Canada, Mark Carney has set out a plan to partner much more closely with the EU on defence, critical minerals and energy security, with the country on the path to becoming the bloc's first associate member.
Deeper integration can unlock a new age of growth and productivity, and provide a louder voice on the world stage, Khan said, from bolstering military defences to safely developing AI and combating the climate crisis. In a world whose superpowers appear ever more comfortable with throwing their weight around, the EU is the only organisation with the economic and geopolitical heft to hold its own.
Khan said the most memorable line in Burnham's speech came a couple of minutes in: “Hope comes from honesty.” He said those were the words of a leader unafraid to change the terms of Britain's dysfunctional political debate by taking on seemingly intractable problems. Today, Brexit is foremost among those problems, and reversing it is the best chance to get Britain back on track.
