London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Thursday will blame Brexit for costing the UK economy £140 billion ($178 billion), calling on the government to “urgently” rebuild relations with the European Union to stem the decline.
Britain’s EU divorce has also meant there are 2 million fewer jobs nationwide than there otherwise would have been, including 290,000 lost positions in London, according to research by Cambridge Econometrics commissioned by City Hall that the Labour Party’s Khan will reference in a speech at Mansion House. Half of the total job losses are in financial services and construction.
“The hard-line version of Brexit we’ve ended up with is dragging our economy down and pushing up the cost of living,” Khan will say, according to excerpts released by his office. “The cost of Brexit crisis can only be solved if we take a mature approach and if we are open to improving our trading arrangements with our European neighbors.”
Can anyone explain how this increased the cost of living other than companies being greedy?
Legislation, paperwork, border checks and tariffs make it more expensive and difficult to transport stuff to the UK. Companies importing from the EU pass on the higher cost of transport to customers. Customers now pay more for the same thing because it costs more to import.
EDIT: Should also mention that this applies to stuff made in the UK too. I doubt there’s many industries that don’t use anything from the EU for raw materials. If you make a widget with German steel, you still pay for that import even if your widget is made in the UK. That cost gets passed on to customers too.
Also the falling value of GBP makes importing anything much more expensive.
Gotcha, thanks!