Sadiq Khan re-elected Mayor of London

By
Joe Talora
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526

Last night, Sadiq Khan was re-elected as Mayor of London for the next three years following a two-day ballot counting process.

The Labour mayor beat his Conservative rival Shaun Bailey by a margin of more than 10 per cent, securing 55.2 per cent of the popular vote.

But the contest was much closer than initially predicted, with Mr Bailey increasing his party’s share of the vote by 1.6 per cent compared to the previous election.

Following the declaration of results, which came at around 11pm last night, Sadiq Khan said that he was “humbled” to be re-elected as Mayor of London and promised to “strain every sinew to help build a better and brighter future for London”.

In his concession speech, Shaun Bailey said that he had been “written off by pollsters, by journalists, by fellow politicians”, but added “it’s no surprise to me that Londoners didn’t write me off”.

After congratulating Sadiq Khan on his victory, Mr Bailey called on him to “reflect on that opportunity, that responsibility… to deliver for Londoners”.

The Green Party’s Sian Berry, who was later in the night re-elected to the London Assembly, achieved her party’s best ever result in London, securing 197,976 votes, an increase of two per cent compared to the 2016 election.

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Liberal Democrat candidate Luisa Porritt finished in fourth place but was 0.6 per cent shy of securing the five per cent of first preference votes necessary to have her £10,000 deposit returned.

Elsewhere, Youtuber Niko Omilana finished ahead of the rest of the candidates, securing almost 2,000 more votes than ex-actor Laurence Fox.

Turnout for the election was just 42.2 per cent, down from a high of 45.3 per cent in 2016.

By comparison, the turnout in the last General Election in the UK was 67.3 per cent.

In the London Assembly elections, none of the 14 constituency seats changed hands, with both Labour and the Conservatives retaining all their respective seats.

But of those 14 seats, there were seven new Assembly members elected, with Anne Clarke, Peter Fortune, Krupesh Hirani, Neil Garratt, Marina Ahmad, Sem Moema and Nick Rogers respectively replacing Andrew Dismore, Gareth Bacon, Navin Shah, Steve O’Connell, Florence Eshalomi, Jennette Arnold and Tony Arbour, all of whom stepped down or retired at the end of the previous term.

The political makeup of the London Assembly will be slightly different next term, though, with Labour losing one member from the London-wide seats while the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Green Party all gained one member.

The Green Party enjoyed a 3.8 per cent increase its share of vote in the London-wide seats, with Zack Polanski elected to join Sian Berry and Caroline Russell, who were re-elected.

Conservative Emma Best was elected to join the returning Shaun Bailey and City Hall Conservative leader Susan Hall, while Liberal Democrat Hina Bokhari will join Caroline Pidgeon, who was also re-elected.

Labour saw two new London-wide Assembly members elected, with Elly Baker and Sakina Sheikh to join the returning Muraq Qureshi.

Meanwhile City & East representative Unmesh Desai held on to his seat.

A tweet from Labour’s Assmebly Member handle said: “There is only one Unmesh Desai and he has absolutely smashed it to bring City and East home for Labour once again.”

The first meeting of the new London Assembly term is scheduled for Friday May 14, while the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has said he will on Monday May 10 begin outlining his plan for London’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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