Sadiq Khan secured a record third term as Mayor of London
London: Sadiq Khan on Saturday registered a decisive victory to secure a record third term as Mayor of London, as the local election results from England and Wales continued to reflect a strong swing in favour of the Opposition Labour Party.
The 53-year-old Pakistani-origin Labour candidate secured a massive 10,88,225 votes with a 43.8 per cent vote share, well ahead of the Conservative candidate Susan Hall’s 8,11,518 votes.
Delhi-born businessman Tarun Ghulati, contesting as an independent candidate among a total 13 mayoral candidates, trailed far behind in most of the boroughs.
Earlier, Khan’s own camp and the BBC had already called the election in favour of Khan as borough-wise results poured in for the UK capital to show that he was on course to beat his nearest Conservative Party rival, Susan Hall, with a strong voter swing in favour of Labour.
Significantly, the UK capital’s Muslim population did not seem to have punished the Labour mayor for his party’s failure to strongly condemn Israel over the Gaza conflict in the same way as other parts of the country had.
Some of Khan’s controversial policies, such as the high costs on drivers of vehicles falling under the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) tariff bracket as part of his anti-pollution drive for London, also did not result in a major dent in his overall popularity.
“Sadiq Khan was absolutely the right candidate. He has got two terms of delivery behind him and I am confident that he has got another term of delivery in front of him,” said Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer just before the results were declared.
The role of London mayor represents the 8.9 million people living across the capital and has a budget of GBP 20.4 billion. His office is responsible for Transport for London (TfL) and has some control over roads, policing and housing in the city.
Londoners also went to the polls on Thursday to vote for one of 14 local representatives on the London Assembly and 11 London-wide Assembly members who hold the Mayor of London accountable.
The Labour Party continued its winning streak in most of the local elections, seen as reflective of the electorate’s mood ahead of a general election expected later this year.
Popular Labour incumbent Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham was re-elected with 63 per cent of the vote, who committed to get right back to work to see through his transport reforms and called for more powers over welfare and housing.
“I am ready to fight harder than I have ever fought for anything before, for a Greater Manchester where people can live free from the fear of debt, hunger and eviction, and where everyone is set up to benefit from the growing success of our city region today,” said Burnham in his victory speech.
Earlier, the party won the Liverpool City Region and South Yorkshire mayoral races, the North East mayoralty, as well as the brand-new mayoralty of East Midlands.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was handed a glimmer of hope on Friday with Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen retaining the seat for the Conservatives, will be hoping Birmingham’s Tory Mayor Andy Street is able to win a contest that has been on a knife-edge between the Conservatives and Labour – with double checks underway as the result remained too close to call.
However, any immediate manoeuvres by the Tory rebels to try and challenge Sunak’s leadership seems to have been averted for the moment as there isn’t much appetite for another upheaval in the party ranks.
An analysis of the local election results by BBC’s polling expert Professor John Curtice suggests that Labour is now in a pole position to win the general election, with the local elections extrapolated to a national level giving the Opposition a comfortable lead.