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As Sadiq Khan waited to give his victory speech on Saturday after securing a record term as London mayor, he shifted uncomfortably.
The veteran Labor politician had endured a tough and sometimes bitter battle. “It’s been a difficult few months,” he said in his victory speech to cheering supporters.
“It is truly an honor to be re-elected for a third term, with record support from Londoners and a wider margin of victory.”
After polls closed Thursday, conservative insiders said the nation’s capital faces a tough race. But the result was a resounding Labor victory.
Khan, who was first elected mayor of the English capital in 2016, beat Tory rival Susan Hall by 11 percentage points, securing a historic third term in office. His predecessors – Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson – each served two terms.
Khan secured more than 1,088,225 votes, around 43.7 percent of the total votes. Hall received 812,397 votes.
“This is a very bad result for the Conservatives,” said Tony Travers, professor of government at the London School of Economics. “Tories often give the impression in London that they are not trying and have given up.”
A stronger Conservative candidate could have exploited voter dissatisfaction with Khan’s performance to mount a tougher competition, he said.
Hall’s campaign sought to exploit a backlash against rising crime rates and the recent extension of the Ulez vehicle emissions levy to the outskirts of London – where the party generally performs better than in the center.
She secured a majority of votes in some outer London boroughs, including Brent and Harrow, but Khan overtook her in inner-city areas such as Kensington and Westminster, where the Tories hold several parliamentary seats.
In her concession speech, Hall accused Khan of “patronizing” voters who care about rising crime. “The most important thing and for me is to reform the Met and make London safe again,” she said.
Although there were last-minute hints that there could be a surprise, the result was in line with pollsters’ expectations. Ahead of election day, data from Savanta ComRes estimated Khan at 50 percent and Hall at 26 percent. The polls had narrowed to 10 points by Thursday.
The most heated issue between the campaigns has been the expansion of the Ulez, which has attracted a growing protest movement.
The conservatives tried to take advantage of that. According to media reports, Greenpeace’s Unearthed investigative unit identified a network of 36 private Facebook groups set up by Conservative Party members across London and southeast England to oppose Ulez’s expansion in the run-up to the mayoral election campaign.
Ulez was introduced by former Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London; Since then, Khan has expanded the program twice.
Jon Tabbush, research director at the Center for London, a think tank, said the Ulez had won Labor votes on the outskirts of London but had failed to generate a surge in Tory support.
“The tactical vote was far more effective than Labor had hoped – with the Liberal Democrats acting as a pressure valve for the Liberal Tories and the London Greens responding to the pressure on Labor,” Tabbush said.
The contest was the first to be held under the first-past-the-post system, a move that analysts believed could help the Conservatives. This is because under the previous system, centre-left voters often voted for another party in the first round before supporting Labor in the second round.
Labor also received a boost from steady support in areas with large Muslim populations, in contrast to the decline it experienced in other parts of the country due to the party’s position on the war between Israel and Hamas.
Concluding his victory speech on Saturday, Khan reflected on the national situation and joined other newly elected Labor mayors in calling for a general election.
“With a Labor Party ready to govern again under Keir Starmer, it is time for Rishi Sunak to give the public a choice,” he said.