You are probably all tired of hearing about Brexit but it looks like it will happen. And it may have a bad effect on us locally.

You are probably all tired of hearing about Brexit but it looks like it will happen. And it may have a bad effect on us locally.

But it may not, although on balance most people I speak to are worried because lots of jobs, visitors, trade locally are connected to Europe in one way or another.

We are just eight months away from the leaving date and we have 41,000 citizens from the EU here, who have made this home, for whom it’s a bigger deal still.

And so I’m launching a ‘Brexit Commission’, which will be chaired by Cllr Amina Ali my cabinet member with responsibility for Brexit.

The Commission will hold a number of hearings, which will feed into the council and our partners plans to ensure our part of the East End continues to thrive.

We’re pretty good at responding to challenges so let’s try to be prepared.