Mr. Khan defeated a right-wing rival who focused on crime and cars, his victory another ominous sign for Britain’s ruling Conservatives ahead of a general election.
Sadiq Khan, the two-term center-left mayor of London, on Saturday became the first three-time winner of the job by a comfortable margin delivering a new setback to Britain’s governing Conservative Party ahead of a looming general election.
Mr. Khan, from the main opposition Labour Party, was initially elected to the post in 2016, becoming London’s first Muslim mayor, and is now the first politician to win three consecutive terms since the role was created in 2000.
With the Labour Party well ahead in the opinion polls ahead of a looming general election, many analysts had expected Mr. Khan to cruise to a comfortable victory in a city that tends to lean to the left, but some saw the potential for an unexpectedly tight race against Susan Hall, representing the Conservatives.
That prospect quickly faded on Saturday, as it became clear that victory was looming for Mr. Khan and, in the final results, he won more than one million votes and 43 percent of the total, with Ms. Hall securing around 32 percent.
“We faced a campaign of nonstop negativity,” Mr. Khan said in an acceptance speech initially disrupted by heckling, adding, “We answered fearmongering with facts, hate with hope and attempts to divide with efforts to unite.”
The vote itself took place on Thursday along with other local and mayoral elections in which the Conservatives, led by Britain’s embattled prime minister, Rishi Sunak, suffered a series of setbacks.
Source :The New York Times
