Khan tells May: You need to “wake up and smell the coffee over Hard Brexit plans

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Theresa May needs to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ and accept that the British public has rejected her plans for Brexit, Sadiq Khan said.

The London mayor said the UK should remain in the single market and warned that any deal which resulted in a blow to the capital’s economy would make the country as a whole poorer.

The Conservatives lost their majority in the election called by the Prime Minister in an attempt to strengthen her hand in the Brexit talks.

Khan, who campaigned for a Remain vote in the referendum a year ago, told the Press Association: ‘I have said all along I accept the verdict of the British public to leave the EU.

‘What I don’t accept is that the British public voted to make us poorer and for successive generations to be poorer.

‘The Prime Minister has got to wake up and smell the coffee, which is the result of the general election.

‘The British public have rejected the Tory extreme hard Brexit.

‘The British public want a Brexit deal that doesn’t make us poorer.

‘That means access to the single market. That means a continued ability to attract talent. That means maintaining a customs union.

‘The Government has got to recognise that London is crucial for the prosperity of the country.

‘If we become poorer because of the way the Government negotiates the EU exit – if we don’t have access to the single market, if we can’t attract talent, if we aren’t members of the customs union – we will be poorer and the Government will have ignored the general election result.’

Asked if he merely wanted access to the single market or for the UK to remain inside it, he said: ‘I want membership of the single market, if we can’t get that, of course, access.’