Sadiq Khan has stepped up his calls for a youth mobility scheme for EU citizens to fill job vacancies in London and other parts of Britain.
The London Mayor believes that if everyone in the UK who wanted to work was trained up to do so there would still be jobs to fill in several sectors.
He also stressed that EU citizens who might come to Britain under a Youth Mobility Scheme would not be “relying upon benefits”.
“Most of our sectors, whether it’s hospitality, whether it’s tech, culture, health, social care, there still would be huge vacancies, even if everybody here who’s not working was trained up,” he told Italy’s La Repubblica.
“So we’re going to take advantage of the opportunity of the renegotiation [with the EU] to try and see if we can get the Youth Mobility Scheme.”
London voted to Remain by 60 per cent to 40 per cent Leave and Mr Khan has been at the forefront of pushing to rebuild ties with Britain’s European neighbours after the damage caused by Brexit.
“The dream for me is as close as we can get to the European Union in a whole host of things,” he added.
“The short term is to make sure that we have as best deal as possible with our nearest neighbours. I think in the medium to long term, we should be talking about single market, custom union and so forth.”
Many pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels and other firms in London and other parts of the country are struggling to find workers, hitting their business and the British economy, with many of these posts having previously been filled by EU citizens.
After Brexit, the number of EU workers heading to the UK fell but immigration rose with more family members coming to Britain.
Conservative visa rules to prevent people earning under £38,700 from bringing foreign partners to Britain were paused in the summer by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Tighter restrictions, though, have been brought in on visa for dependants of students as part of moves to reduce immigration.
Earlier this month, Sir Keir Starmer said there are no plans for a Youth Mobility Scheme, rejecting an EU proposal to allow 18 to 30-year-old EU citizens to live in Britain and young Britons to stay in the EU for up to four years.
Youth mobility is a key EU demand and London’s acceptance, perhaps in a watered-down form, may be a condition for moving forward on Britain’s wish list of post-Brexit trade deal reforms.
Responding to differences in stance on areas like youth mobility or fishing, the Prime Minister said that a much more constructive approach than his predecessors “doesn’t mean that challenges aren’t there”.
“It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy,” he added.
But he is very keen to reset relations with Brussels and other European nations after the bust-ups over Brexit under previous administrations.
Rishi Sunak had started doing this as Prime Minister but the new Labour government is expected to go far further.
“There will be issues which are difficult to resolve and on areas on which we will stand firm... but we will find constructive ways to work together,” Sir Keir has stressed.
