A Londoner told me that part of the country’s divide regarding Brexit was based on the fact that EU membership had made it easy for employers in London to grab up the best people from any European country experiencing an economic or political crisis. “When Spain collapsed, all of the best people in Spain were available to the banks here,” he said. “That’s been great for London, but it doesn’t help people to the north.”
The cream of the European crop is already in London (and how many more crises can Europe have?), and London has certainly run out of housing, sidewalk space, etc. So even without Brexit perhaps the city’s economic growth was due to slow?