London needs to be less “elitist” if it is to find long-term economic success post-Brexit, according to a government adviser on international innovation and creativity.
Charlie Leadbeater, author of We-think: Mass Innovation not Mass Production, said the capital was in need of a “new cosmopolitan story” as it was too open to accusations of “elitism, inequality, being self-preferential”.
“We need a story that is more rooted, fair, patriotic and inclusive. We can’t carry on, but this is a good challenge,” he said at The London Conference today.
Leadbeater pointed to London’s reputation before 2016 as a vibrant and diverse city, but said its authorities could no longer take for granted that “it is what everyone wants”.
“Over the past year the city is being increasingly seen as “the enemy, the source of that which is distrusted”.
He plotted out five possible scenarios for the city’s future post-Brexit.
The first was rapid decline leading to collapse “where banking jobs would move to New York and Frankfurt and the Walkie Talkie would become a Deliveroo headquarters for unemployed English bankers”.
Warning against a slowdown of skilled migrants moving into London, he pointed to the decline of Detroit in the 1950s and 1960s, during which the city’s prosperity waned because of competition from Japanese companies and “white people fleeing to the suburbs motivated by political forces and corruption”.
The second scenario was London as a global city state, akin to Singapore, “small but diverse in its regional trade” and operating as a “one-belt, one -road city”, enjoying increased trade with China and India.
The third option was the re-nationalisation of London so it was a less as global city and more a national city such as Montreal after the separatist movement, “which some say now is a backwater when it should be a global city”.
The fourth option is becoming a European enclave within the UK with its own visa programme and a “very flexible approach to Brexit”.
However, Leadbeater said it was path of “muddling through” was likely the one London would take.
He said: “My guess is London will go where the money is and it’s going east, much further than Europe. But we need to recognise that the status quo is broken and status quo politics doesn’t work.”
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