Cultures clash as London's black cabs and Uber fight for a future

London

SHORTLY before 6am in south-east London, Zahra Bakkali unlocked her white Toyota Prius, switched on the Uber app and awaited the day's first job. In the opposite side of the city, Paul Walsh fired up his black cab and set off for Heathrow Airport.

They travel the same streets every day, strangers but also adversaries in what has become a familiar 21st-century conflict: the sharp-elbowed ride-hailing company Uber versus entrenched taxi companies. And yet the clash in London is different, less about the disruptive power of an app, or a new business model, than about the disruption of Britain.

London's cabby wars echo the culture wars that fuelled Britain's vote last summer to leave the European Union - and that have brutally…