Sadiq Khan secures record third term as Mayor of London
Keir Starmer and Labour’s Claire Ward embrace after she was elected as East Midlands Mayor on Saturday.
Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party’s Mayor of London, romped to victory on Saturday, securing a record third straight term at City Hall, on another hugely disappointing day for the U.K.’s governing Conservatives ahead of a looming general election.
Mr. Khan won a little over a million votes, or nearly 44% of the vote, more than 11 percentage points ahead of his main challenger, the Conservative Party’s Susan Hall. He did particularly well in inner London but struggled in several outer boroughs.
There had been frenzied speculation on Friday that the result would be closer than previously thought, but Mr. Khan’s lead showed a swing from Conservative to Labour when compared with the previous mayoral election in 2021.
Mr. Khan, who replaced Boris Johnson as London Mayor in 2016, has been an increasingly divisive gure in the past few years.
While his supporters say he has multiple achievements to his name, such as expanding housebuilding, free school meals for young children, keeping transport costs in check and generally backing London’s minority groups, his critics say he has overseen a crime surge, been anticar and has unnecessarily allowed pro-Palestinian marches to become a regular feature at weekends.
The Labour Mayors in Liverpool, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire were also re-elected, while the party looks to have ousted the Conservative mayor in West Midlands. A recount is underway there. The latest successes come a day after Labour seized control of councils across England that it has not held for decades.
Minor setback
One negative for Labour was that its vote in strongly Muslim areas in England was depressed by opposition to the party leadership’s strongly pro-Israel stance over the war in Gaza.