LONDON — Sadiq Khan secured a third term as mayor of London after a bitter contest that focused heavily on the hot-button issues of crime and clean air.
Khan, who first won election to City Hall for Labour in 2016 and was comfortably re-elected in 2021, secured a third term with 43.7 of the vote. His closest challenger, Conservative Susan Hall got 32. 6 percent.
Khan’s result is down from the 55.2 percent he bagged in 2021, although a change to London’s mayoral voting system makes direct comparisons tricky.
The London mayor’s victory follows a bruising campaign against Hall, who was selected ahead of more high-profile Tory candidates including former London Minister Paul Scully.
Hall’s candidacy generated controversy after she liked tweets praising the late right-wing politician Enoch Powell and some containing Islamophobic abuse towards Khan, a practicing Muslim.
On the eve of polling day, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said a victory for Hall would be a “win for racists, white supremacists and Islamophobes the world over,” a statement former Prime Minister Liz Truss branded “disgusting.”
During the campaign, Hall took aim at Khan over his controversial expansion of the capital city’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, a charge on drivers in high-polluting vehicles that the Tories successfully railed against in a Westminster by-election last year. Hall said she would scrap the expansion on “day one.”
Knife crime in London also made headlines during the campaign, with a deadly sword attack in the London borough of Hainault dominating the final days of the race.
Khan, who formerly served as a Labour MP and minister, is now the capital’s longest-serving mayor. As well as rising crime in the capital, his in-tray for a third term includes housing affordability and scrutiny of the under-fire Metropolitan Police.
