Labour Party’s Sadiq Khan has become the first Muslim mayor of the city of London, defeating Conservative nominee Zac Goldsmith by a 300,000-vote margin and shattering the latter party’s eight-year hold on the city’s top job.
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London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, on Sunday attended a ceremony in the British capital to commemorate the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany.
“I said from the outset, I’m embarrassed, I’m sorrowful about anti-Semitism in my party”, he added.
“I can’t quite believe the last 24 hours”, the new Mayor of London said after signing the document officially declaring him mayor, watched by leaders of different faiths.
“I’m determined to lead the most transparent, engaged and accessible administration London has ever seen”.
I’m asking if you’re anxious about the safety of London now that we have Sadiq Khan as its mayor – and you can’t say that you’re not.
Khan held his lead in the opinion polls, despite accusations by Goldsmith that he has shared platforms with radical Muslim speakers and given “oxygen” to extremists. “That’s the nature of our democracy and the rough-and-tumble of politics”.
He said: “We’ve got to start reaching out to people who in the past have voted Conservative”. The son of a Pakistani bus driver, he went on to study law before entering politics in 2005.
As the Conservatives began their post-mortem on losing the mayoralty, former party chairman Sayeeda Warsi decried the “appalling dog whistle campaign”, saying it not only cost the Conservatives the mayoralty but also the party’s “reputation and credibility on issues of race and religion”.
Writing in the Observer newspaper, Mr Khan said: “David Cameron and Zac Goldsmith chose to set out to divide London’s communities in an attempt to win votes in some areas and suppress voters in other parts of the city”.
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.
He also declined, when pressed several times on the matter, to withdraw his campaign claim that London’s security would be jeopardised by Khan.
The result was good news for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn after Labour were beaten into third in Scotland’s Parliament election by the Tories.
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Cameron, who is grappling with deep splits within his party ahead of the June 23 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, said the party’s showing across the elections was “remarkable”.
