London has a new mayor and its first who is a Muslim: 45-year-old Sadiq Khan.
Advertisement
Khan’s role as Mayor may also help to quell rising feelings of anti-Islam in the nation.
Mr Khan is the city’s first Muslim mayor, after beating Tory Zac Goldsmith by 1,310,143 votes to 994,614.
Khan admitted that during his previous job as a human rights lawyer he represented some “pretty unsavory characters” but said their views were “abhorrent”.
“The opportunities, not just to survive but to thrive”, he added.
He won an impressive majority last night and we look forward to working with him, working with a Conservative government to continue the investment and growth in this great capital city of ours that Boris Johnson managed so successfully by working alongside a Conservative government.
“If you can answer those questions, and clearly Sadiq Khan did answer those questions to the satisfaction of London voters, you get yourself elected”.
Barbara Redmond, 67, said: “I always vote Labour but this time I did consider voting Green but I was so angry about how Sadiq was attacked by the Tories I had to support Labour”. Londoners deserved better and I hope its something the Conservative Party will never try to repeat, he wrote.
He had been cautious about the result, which he said could have been affected by the recent row over anti-Semitism in the Labour party.
Khan’s appearance at the north London ceremony came on May 8, days after the end of a fiery election campaign in which accusations of antisemitism Islamophobia were bandied.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi – a former party chair who was the UK’s first female Muslim cabinet minister – said the election defeat was due to a “dog whistle campaign”.
“I want to say thank you my awesome mum – she really is – and to my wonderful wife, my daughters and to my family”.
However leader Jeremy Corbyn did not attend Khan’s swearing-in ceremony.
“Sadiq Khan was a more formidable opponent than [former mayor] Ken Livingstone but our campaign alienated some and we need to recognise that”.
Advertisement
The son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver and a seamstress, Khan defeated Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, the son of a billionaire financier, by a record margin to secure the biggest individual mandate in British political history.
