London's Mayor wants more Kiwis to live in London and is concerned the British Government is making it harder for Kiwis to live and work in the UK.
Sadiq Khan made the comments after hosting Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at a youth event in the city, which also included Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The awe-struck Mayor said he spent most of his meeting with our Prime Minister gushing about how privileged he was to meet her and claimed her as a London local saying "the relationship between London and New Zealand will go from strength to strength now that we have a Londoner as Prime Minister of New Zealand."
Jacinda Ardern lived in London for two and a half years in the mid 2000s but since then the British Government has tightened visa requirements significantly and in the past two years it's become much harder to live and work in the UK as the British Government’s increased the health surcharge, salary threshold and the cost of sponsorship.
As a result the number of New Zealanders seeking visas has halved in the past decade from 12,521 in 2005 to 6940 in 2016, which is nowhere near the quota allowed.
Sadiq Khan made it clear he wants more New Zealanders to call London home.
He said the British Government's immigration changes bother him saying of Kiwi ex-pats specifically, that their energy and enthusiasm contribute to London being the greatest city in the world and says that needs to carry on.
He went on to say he worried about any unintended or intended consequences of government policy that make it more difficult for talent to come from New Zealand.
"What we don't want is a toxic hostile environment being created or people in New Zealand under the mistaken impression that we're going to somehow become insular and inward looking.
He stressed "London is open'.
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