Khan: I’ll be best mayor

LABOUR’S CANDIDATE for next year’s Mayor of London election has pledged to work with the capital’s Jewish community.

Sadiq Khan said he wanted to repair relations with London Jews after he was selected last Friday.

He will fight to succeed current Conservative mayor Boris Johnson after beating closest rival Tessa Jowell.

The former Communities Minister, who supported Jeremy Corbyn in the party’s leadership contest, said he was “humbled” to have been selected.

During the campaign Tooting MP Mr Khan distanced himself from former mayor Ken Livingstone and said he wanted to be “a Muslim mayor who stands up for Jewish rights”.

“A strained relationship with one of London’s most important minority communities is unacceptable,” he had said.

In June Mr Khan co-sponsored an early-day motion in Parliament praising the efforts of campaigners to ban a neo-Nazi protest planned for the heart of the north-west London Jewish community.

Earlier this week Mr Khan issued a Rosh Hashanah message, wishing Jewish Londoners “peace and good health, today and all through the year.”

Writing during the campaign, he acknowledged that the Jewish community had “shown its dissatisfaction” with Labour at May’s general election and in 2012 when Ken Livingstone was beaten by Mr Johnson.

He promised to be the “best mayor that Jewish Londoners have ever had — the strongest possible champion of your community”, but added: “I don’t expect Jewish Londoners to rush to reembrace Labour — trust has to be won back once it is lost.”

Mr Khan also pledged to combat antisemitism in the capital, not to discuss foreign issues, and work with Jewish charities.