Sadiq Khan’s reign in London will continue for at least another four years, as the Labour Party mayor has secured a record third term in office following Thursday’s mayoral election in the British capital.
UPDATE 1830: In a statement following his victory, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “Leading our nation’s capital has been one of the
greatest privileges of my life. I’m honoured that Londoners have elected me to serve them for a historic third term.
“Eight years ago I vowed to be a Mayor for all Londoners. I’ll continue to support you through the cost-of-living crisis, providing free school meals for all state primary school children and starting record numbers of council homes. Together, let’s continue to build a better London for everyone – a city that is fairer, safer and greener.”
UPDATE 1620: London Mayor Sadiq Khan has defeated his Tory challenger, London Assembly Member Susan Hall, by a margin of 44 per cent to 33 per cent, with a majority of 276,428, The Telegraph reports. Having won 1,088,225 votes to 811,518, Khan significantly improved upon his performance in his 2021 re-election bid when he only beat out Conservative Shuan Bailey by 4.7 points.
The original story continues as follows…
Khan, who took over from Boris Johnson as the Mayor of London in 2016, will now be the city’s longest-serving mayor since the position was created in 2000, as he is set for a record third term in power. The Labour Party mayor had long been projected to come out on top, with the multicultural British capital — in which native white Britons are a minority — leaning heavily to the left.
While rumours swirled around Westminster of a potential upset, polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice said that the Tories will be disappointed after failing to capitalise on Khan’s shortcomings, saying: “If the Conservatives were fuelling their hopes last night they must feel rather flat today and I’m not sure where all of that has come from.”
The results come as the Conservatives lost over 370 local councillors as elections were held throughout the country on Thursday, further indicating that the party, which has controlled Downing Street for over 14 years, is on pace for a disastrous general election against the left-wing Labour Party, which picked up over 200 new councillors.
Khan had branded his opponent in the race as the “most dangerous candidate” he has ever faced, citing her opposition to feminism and the green agenda, support for former President Donald Trump, and for arguing that Brexit leader Nigel Farage should be “treated with respect” to demonstrate somehow that she is outside of the normal bounds of British politics.
The leftist mayor thrust himself onto the global political scene after publicly feuding with Donald Trump in 2017, demanding that the then-American president be barred from having a state visit. Khan would go on to accuse Trump of using “xenophobia, racism, and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic”, of only caring about “White America”, and that Trump’s election slogan of America First actually meant “White America First”.
Mr Trump, in turn, branded the mayor a “stone-cold loser” for failure to tackle violent crime and terrorism in Britain’s largest city.
Ahead of the London mayoral election this week, Trump once again pointed to London as a warning of what could happen to the United States if mass migration continues, telling supporters: “We’ve seen what happened when Europe opened its doors to jihad. Look at Paris, look at London, they’re no longer recognisable.”
“I’m gonna get myself into a lot of trouble with the folks in Paris and the folks in London, but you know what, that’s the fact. They are no longer recognisable and we can’t let that happen to our country.”
Since coming into office in 2016, knife crime has risen by a staggering 38 per cent under Mayor Khan. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), knife and gun crime both rose by 20 per cent last year, with 14,626 knife offences recorded in 2023, an increase of 2,481 over the previous year. There were also nearly 200 more gun offences recorded by police in 2023, totalling 1,208 for the year despite the UK’s strict gun laws.
Despite the increasingly dangerous streets of the city he is tasked with protecting, Khan attempted to downplay the knife crime crisis in London. Confronted last week by Hall about machete-wielding youths running rampant in the city, Khan joked: “I think the Tory candidate should stop watching The Wire.”
The comments drew fresh scrutiny this week following the latest sword attack in London on Tuesday, which saw a 14-year-old boy killed and four others injured, including two police officers.
The woke mayor has also faced scrutiny over the alleged two-tiered policing of pro-Palestinian protests by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the October 7th Hamas terror attacks on Israel, after which there have been anti-Israel demonstrations held in the UK capital nearly every week.
The protests have frequently seen activists call for “jihad” and chanted genocidal slogans against the Jewish state. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman said that the protests demonstrated that “Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites” had taken control of the agenda in Britain.
Meanwhile, Khan has been facing some pushback from the public over his far-left agenda, including the controversial expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) car tax from a small area in central London to reduce congestion to the entirety of London. The move has sparked outrage — and civil disobedience — over its disproportional impact on the working class, specifically those who need to drive in the capital for work, who now face a daily £12.50 surcharge for the pleasure.
This story is developing…