Is London Calling Brexit?

London’s place within the UK has always been the subject of a lot of debate, usually with a complaint that London is too often discussed and prioritised. But by ‘London’ people often mean the areas of central London known as Westminster, Whitehall and, sometimes, the City of London. Asking what effect Brexit will have on London should therefore be about more than the effects on the UK’s government and parliament or the financial institutions who make the City their home.

To look at London as a whole the Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance held a panel entitled ‘Is London Calling Brexit?’ Consisting of  Dr Tim Oliver (Loughborough University London), Dr Scott James (King’s College London), Dr Yu Jie (Chatham House), Matt Scott (Thames Ward Community Project), Cllr Carole Williams (Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Human Resources, London Borough of Hackney) and chaired by Prof. Helen Drake (Loughborough University London).

A full recording of the panel can be found below: 

Dr Tim Oliver opened by discussing his new book, Understanding Brexit: A Concise Introduction. He identified seven lessons from writing the book about the way we talk about Brexit and how those lessons apply to the debate about London and Brexit. He noted that too often ‘Brexit’ is used as a catch-all term and how important it is to be specific about what it is we’re talking about when we refer to ‘Brexit’. Being more precise would help limit the extent to which the topic has come to consume British politics, often to the detriment of many other topics, not least those connected to the everyday lives of Londoners. It’s also important to be aware of how everyone – whether in the suburbs of London or the highest levels of government – is often caught-up in a low-information debate about Brexit, despite their now being a wide range of reliable sources out there to consult. One overlooked aspect of the debate is that knowledge and understanding of the UK state is taken for granted. This is despite ideas about where power and control is located in the UK state are deeply contested. Often discussions about Brexit turn into debates about the setup of the modern UK state. This reflects that everyone in London and the UK has been on a steep learning curve about the UK, UK-EU relations and wider issues such as international trade. Talking about such issues, however, require us to think about how to make the debate about Brexit relevant. One way is to talk about local politics. In doing so, however, all sides must avoid belittling, ignoring or taking for granted the British people. This is something they have all done, especially towards the millions of Londoners who live outside Zone 1.

Turning to the effect on the City of London, Dr Scott James of King’s College London, noted how financial services has so far not been as big a big an issue in the debate about Brexit as might have been assumed when the referendum was held. In part that reflects how the UK has not been able to push for the degree of access to the EU the City would have wanted. He made three points about the City and Brexit. First, that the expected job losses from Brexit have either been exaggerated or confused, with the 2008 financial crisis leading to much bigger layoffs. Second, that the city is not unified over what Brexit should lead to and nor is it a hot-bed of support for Remain and reversing the vote to leave. He estimated that about a third of the City is interested in using the UK’s withdrawal to diverge from EU regulations, not least regulators themselves who would prefer independence to implementing rules and laws they will, once outside of the EU, no longer have any input to. The City is more united in its fear of the election of a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn. Finally, that the binary choice of rule maker or taker has never been clear because of the growing power of the Eurozone and the UK’s ability to change the EU while a Member State. In conclusion he said it was important to be sceptical of the damage Brexit could do to the City, but also to be sceptical of any promises of a glorious post-Brexit future for the City as some form of ‘Singapore on Thames’.

Dr Yu Jie of Chatham House began by pointing out how amazing it was that the UK’s referendum united China and Japan in agreement that a vote to was a bad idea. That said, the view in China now is one of what are the opportunities, but also confusion about what is going on in the UK and how this is damaging its international position. The latter has been taken as a lesson for the Chinese Community party about not externalising internal party-political issues. If there is one thing China worries about with regard to London, it is the metropolis’s ability to be a secure and safe home for Chinese investments. This was boosted by the election of Donald Trump and the need for China to find international alliances to counter his approach to international economics. In this, the UK and China can complement one another rather than be competitive because the UK is a service-based economy while China remains largely manufacturing focused. This will be important in future because the one thing China looks to London for are ideas on how to move to a tertiary economy. It’s one reason why in future the focus on UK-China relations should be on investment arrangements instead of trade.

Dr Matt Scott, of the Thames Ward Community Project and a Lecturer a London Metropolitan University, talked about whether London is ready for Brexit. He argued it was not, either in a bureaucratic or emotional sense. In neither area has there been sufficient investment to prepare. An important focus, he argued, was the thousands of civil society organisations across the metropolis. They are essential to weathering Brexit, especially the smaller groups who find themselves on the frontline but who struggle in part because of funding cuts imposed by central government. He discussed his own experiences with TELCO – The East London Citizens Organisation – in Barking on Thames, an area undergoing substantial regeneration and population growth. The area of Barking and Dagenham was one of the few areas of London where a majority of voters who voted did so for Leave. Dr Scott noted how local people might not appreciate the cuts imposed by central government on local areas, with it not being clear to many Londoner who it is that has control and power in a city as wealthy as London. That, he argued, has created anger that some have manipulated.

Finally, Cllr Carole Williams (Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Human Resources, London Borough of Hackney) discussed how people can be unsure of how the UK’s system of government works and that while local government might be the poor relative of central government, it does have the power to change people’s lives through the provision of everyday services many people take for granted. Local councillors therefore have a lot more power compared to backbench MPs of opposition parties, despite the latter getting far more media and public attention. She pointed to the many areas of Brexit – including the many unknown unknowns – which it was going to be for local government to deal with. In a borough like Hackney, which voted heavily for Remain, the local council is thinking not only about how the area and its people are prepared, but also what opportunities might become available.