LONDON: The Pakistan-origin Briton Sadiq Khan has swept to victory in the London mayor’s election for a record third time as the polls results poured in Labour party’s favour.
Final results for the London mayoral constituency of Lambeth & Southwark showed Khan’s win as official as the he secured 106,861 votes against Conservative’s Susan Hall, who received 26,347 votes.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party continued to count gains after Khan’s landslide victory against his nearest rival, in a contest dominated by criticisms of his decision to expand London’s ultra low emission zone.
Keir had signalled he was confident of Khan’s victory before declarations commenced, as he counted mayoral victories for his party in Liverpool, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, and in Greater Manchester where Andy Burnham returned to power.
In a fresh challenge to the prime minister to call an election, Sir Keir said: “Fourteen years and, I am sorry, I don’t care which political party you support, if you leave your country in a worse state than when you found it 14 years later, you do not deserve to be in government for a moment longer.”
Khan needed to win a simple majority of ballots cast, as the rules for the mayoral race were changed to a first-past-the-post voting system ahead of the latest election.
In his victory speech, Mr Khan said he was “beyond humbled” to serve the city as he called being mayor “the honour of my life”. He also hit out at the “non-stop negativity” he faced during a bitter election campaign
