Labor Party’s Sadiq Khan has won second term as London mayor after beating Conservative (Tory) rival Shaun Bailey with a small majority.
Although Khan failed to win an outright majority in the first round, he ultimately prevailed in the second round when second preference votes were counted.
The Labor politician (of Pakistan heritage) won 1,206,034 votes (55.2 per cent) to Bailey’s 977,601 votes, or 44.8 per cent, a majority of 208,533 votes. Bailey is of British Jamaican heritage.
Khan said in his victory speech: “I promise to strain every sinew, help build a better and brighter future for London, after the dark days of the pandemic and to create a greener, fairer, and safer city for all Londoners, to get the opportunities they need to fulfill their potential.”
“It’s in this spirit that I promise to lead London over the next three years, building bridges between the different communities in our city, building bridges across cultural, social, and class divides,” he added.
In the wake of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in Britain following the death of George Floyd in the U.S, Khan established a ‘Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm’ to review historical monuments and statues in London.
Khan rose to international attention during his term after engaging in a public diplomatic spat with then-President Donald Trump.
Trump branded Khan a “stone-cold loser” after Khan said in 2017 that the United Kingdom should cancel Trump’s state visit.
Trump called Khan ‘a disaster’.
Months of polling predicted a landslide victory for Khan for second term.
While a comfortable majority, it was less than Khan’s 2016 results — which the BBC described on Sunday as the “record-setting vote total” of 1,310,143, which translated into 56.8 per cent and a 315,529-vote majority over his main rival, Conservative Zac Goldsmith.
“London will have a leftist Mayor in power for at least three more years after his victory was announced on Saturday evening”, commented Breitbart News, an American far-right syndicated news, opinion, and commentary website.
