The report is not comprehensive but seeks to set out the most urgent areas for action. It therefore reflects the atmosphere of uncertainty and possibility that has accompanied discussions of ‘Brexit before Brexit’, with the June 2017 general election result compounding uncertainty. It was written in the period between the EU Referendum of June 2016, and the initiation of negotiations a year later. This report considers the challenges Brexit poses for London’s position as a global city and proposes ways of addressing these challenges. Furthermore London’s economic and social structures make it particularly vulnerable to changes in international trading and migration. The capital has an international stature as a global city, and voted to remain by a margin of 60:40 (though some areas of London voted heavily in favour of leaving). With Brexit impending, London is facing a major change in its relationship to Europe, and with it, to the rest of the world. However, London’s long boom has placed severe pressure on its infrastructure, particularly its housing stock, and its growth has been accompanied by a rise in inequality and stubbornly high levels of relative poverty, caused in part by high housing costs. This trajectory has faced setbacks, including the recessions of the early 1990s and the late 2000s, but London has proved remarkably resilient. London suffered from depopulation after the war, but began to bounce back in terms of population and economic growth from the late 1980s, fuelled by the expansion of the deregulated financial service sector and a re-emergent cultural confidence driven by inward migration and increased diversity. It creates opportunity and risk for a city that has, since the 1970s, capitalised on its position between continental Europe and the USA, sharing proximity with the first and language with the second, to become a world-leading business capital. Brexit is probably the most dramatic event in London’s history in a generation, possibly since World War II.
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