London Mayor Sadiq Khan has waded into American politics once again, saying that he is worried about his safety if Donald Trump returns to the White House and that the left-wing Labour Party should openly support the campaign of Kamala Harris.
The far-left Mayor of London, who has a long history of public verbal spats with former President Donald Trump, said in an interview with the globalist New Statesman this week that he has personal fears of the Republican nominee being victorious in the presidential election in November.
“The last time we had a Trump presidency, as a matter of public record, there was a massive increase in hate crime towards me… I worry about what a second Trump presidency would mean for me and my family, but I’m not going to allow these people to cower me. It makes me even more determined to do my job,” Khan told the British news magazine.
Khan, one of the most powerful members of the Labour Party, broke ranks with the now-governing left-wing party to argue that it should openly support Vice President Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential race.
In light of the possibility of needing to negotiate with a second Trump administration, the new government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has attempted to take a more neutral stance, while dispatching figures such as Foreign Secretary David Lammy to meet with Trump allies in Washington, including now running mate JD Vance.
It is unclear how successful such a rebrand will be given Lammy’s own history of criticising Trump, previously branding the American leader as a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath.”
Mayor Khan argued that the leftist party should abandon attempts to cover up its true preferences in the race, saying: “It’s obvious what my politics are. I’m a member of the Labour Party – we’re a social democratic party. I want the Democrats to win.
“It’s no secret many Labour Party members go and volunteer for the Democrats during presidential elections. We shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Many of my staffers helped all three: Obama, Clinton and Biden,” Khan said.
“I’ve been so impressed with Tim Walz. It just shows the judgement that Kamala Harris has in relation to her choice for vice-president. Compare and contrast that with the choice made by the other guy, in JD Vance,” he added.
The far-left mayor rose to international attention through his feud with Trump, which began in earnest in 2017 when Khan demanded that the then-President be refused a state visit to the UK when he met with Queen Elizabeth II.
Khan argued that Trump should not be afforded the normal niceties granted to U.S. leaders because he used “xenophobia, racism, and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic,” asserting that Trump only cared about “White America.”
In turn, Trump branded the London Mayor as a “stone-cold loser” for failing to prevent the rise in knife crime in the British capital. Earlier this year, Mr Trump continued his critiques, saying that under Khan’s watch, London has become “no longer recognisable” because it has “opened its doors to jihad.”