“We need more migrants in London,” according to Mayor Sadiq Khan. In a recent interview, Mr. Khan expressed views that clearly highlighted his disagreement with the Labour Party’s rhetoric on immigration on the national level.
A record 1.2 million immigrants arrived in the UK last year, a good number of these likely heading straight to London. More than four in 10 of the city’s 2021 residents were non-UK born. But Mr. Khan made it quite clear in the interview that a “sensible” immigration policy would see more individuals landing in the country, particularly in London.
Asked about his views on immigration during a Channel 4 News podcast, the Labour mayor was quick to “park” the social and cultural impacts, pointing instead to his plan to “help our economy.” On troubles within the health, hospitality and tech sectors, he said:
I’ve spent this morning with some of our city’s leading business people who create jobs, wealth and prosperity; they’ve got a skills shortage and a labour shortage. We’ve got a pipeline of training up Londoners for future jobs … Even if every single Londoner who’s currently not working was to be trained up to do these jobs, we’d still have massive numbers of vacancies.
Mr. Khan also appeared to suggest that there are no downfalls of mass migration; that opposition to this is simply a matter of political opportunism:
If you’re worried about migration because it’s unpopular in certain parts of the country, if you think you don’t need it, and if other parts of the country either don’t want it for political reasons or don’t think they need it, I respect that.
Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy decided to leave these comments unchallenged, jumping in only after the mayor pointed to a shortage of EU-born builders to ‘ask’: “So Brexit’s been a disaster from this point of view, has it?” He also chose to ask about Mr. Khan’s family history with regard to immigration and pushed the discussion towards questioning whether the national debate on this topic is racist.
Cities, Mr. Khan argued, should be handed devolved powers to decide their own approaches to immigration; so that, in his words, “I can be in charge of deciding how many people come into London to help our economy.”
His comments clash with those of Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who described last month’s immigration figures as “extraordinary” and criticised the Tory government for having “no plan and no grip” on the country’s borders. She told the House of Commons that net migration “should come down,” asking “what is the point” of Home Secretary Suella Braverman if this does not take place.
