John Phillips/Stringer
Sadiq Khan was first elected Mayor of London in 2016.
CNN
—
Sadiq Khan won a third term as London’s mayor, ending a round of local elections across England that confirmed Labour’s political dominance and spelled doom for Britain’s Conservative government.
Khan won 43.7% of the vote, defeating Conservative challenger Susan Hall by about 11 percentage points, extending his control of the capital since 2016.
It follows Success streak Around the UK for Labor who are firmly positioned to wrest power from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservatives in a general election in the coming months.
The Conservatives lost control of 10 local councils and nearly 500 councilors on Thursday, suffering an electoral defeat at the hands of the general populace that almost everyone – including those within the party – expected.
Labor leader Keir Starmer told reporters on Saturday: “I’m sorry, I don’t care what political party you support, if after 14 years you leave your country in a worse state than you found it, you don’t deserve to be in government for one more moment.”
But Chung saw a slim enough victory to withstand a challenge to his leadership threatened by rebel Tories depending on Thursday’s election result.
The party had hoped to retain the mayoralty in the West Midlands on Saturday, giving an increasingly embattled Sunak something to look forward to at least uniting his lawmakers in Westminster after previously holding the same post in the Tees Valley.
Thursday’s vote marked the final run-off before a general election by January. Sunak has resisted calls to outline when he would hold that referendum, and Labor is leading opinion polls by a wide margin.
Starmer’s opposition won control of eight councils and won a Westminster by-election in Blackpool on Thursday.
The results confirmed the usual poll narrative that the group was on track to win power, but failed to shake off the red tide some in Labor had hoped for, losing some of the trickier contests it faced.
There are also signs that dissatisfaction with the party’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza has hurt Labor among voters in areas with large Muslim populations. Especially the loss of the north-west English city of Oldham Council, where a quarter of the population is Muslim.
“We recognize the strength of the sentiment and we will continue to work as we do in every area across the country to win votes in the future,” Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC.
If his victory is confirmed, Khan will become the first mayor of London to serve a third term since the post was created in 2000.
The city of nine million people is more multicultural, liberal and pro-European than England as a whole, leading Khan to occasionally clash with successive Labor leaders, particularly over the issue of Brexit.
He prioritized emissions-cutting policies in an effort to reduce the city’s reputation as a polluter, and long made international headlines. General clue With former US President Donald Trump during his administration.
But critics have attacked Khan’s record on knife crime and the recent expansion of the world’s first low-emissions zone, which conservatives say will hit poor families outside London the hardest.
