Nigel Farage has told Sadiq Khan to focus on the knife crime epidemic on the streets of London rather than re-opening the Brexit debate once again.
The Mayor is set to unveil new anti-Brexit research and declare “Brexit isn’t working” in his speech at Mansion House today.
Mr Khan, who has consistently opposed the outcome of the 2016 referendum, will also make the case for a “more open debate” about the downsides of leaving the EU.
He will also spark a headache for Sir Keir, by floating the merits of rejoining the single market.
Despite Labour’s attempt to close down claims they would drag Britain back into the EU’s orbit, as his party’s most senior elected politician Mr Khan’s words will be leapt on by critics.
In words given in advance to the Financial Times, Mr Khan will say: ““Rather than politicians dodging or ducking this issue, it’s incumbent on all of us to have an honest and mature discussion about the best way forward.
“Because the hardline version of Brexit we’ve ended up with is dragging our economy down and pushing up the cost of living.”
The London Mayor will also claim his demand for a “closer relationship with the EU” is in line with Sir Keir Starmer’s own policy.
However his attempt to re-open the debate has sparked instant backlash.
Nigel Farage said: “More than 1,000 murders have taken place in London in the 2,773 days since Sadiq Khan was first elected.
“Perhaps he should focus more on that and less about Brexit.”
Howard Cox, the Reform UK candidate for London mayor, has similarly said Mr Khan “should butt out of national and international politics and focus on cutting knife crime, housing young people in affordable homes and to stop fleecing drivers”.
He said: “With his purely cash-grabbing ULEZ scheme, he has reduced the Capital’s GDP by nearly £1billion per year.
“So his comments about leaving the EU are not only hypocritical but ill-informed.”
Mr Cox adds that the claims made the in the study set to be cited by Mr Khan, that the UK economy has been made £140billion smaller by Brexit, are “fantasy economics”.
Prominent economist Julian Jessop has also criticised the mayor’s claims, describing the report about Brexit’s effect on the economy as “fatally flawed”.
Mr Jessop explained that the modelling used to come up with the figure finds a group of countries that performed similarly to the UK before Brexit, and then attribute any divergence since then to Brexit.
However this “wrongly assumes that the UK would have been impacted equally by other shocks (notably Covid and the energy crisis), and ignores other national factors (such as the huge fiscal stimulus in the US).
He also points out that GDP in the UK was level pegging with the Euro area in 2012, however is now around 7 points higher.
He said the findings do not pass the “sniff test”.
