If the expression ensures that there are “never two without three”, it has never before materialized for a mandate at the head of the British capital. Until this Saturday, May 4. Labor Sadiq Khan was re-elected mayor of London, becoming the first to remain in office for a third consecutive term, several British media announced after the vote count. At 53, this son of Pakistani immigrants, far ahead of Conservative Party candidate Susan Hall, and thus exceeds the two mandates served by his predecessor and former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
For his first term, Sadiq Khan forcefully fought Brexit. This time, he promised a city that was “fairer, safer, greener for everyone.” He wants to expand his free lunch program for public school children. He, who grew up in social housing, is committed to ensuring that 40,000 new social housing units are built. He promised to take action to ensure that there would be no more homeless people in London by 2030.
This result in the capital is part of a wider series of defeats for the British Conservative Party. The Tories, in power for 14 years UKexperienced their worst defeat in 40 years for a local election, during which voters were called to vote for a partial legislative – won by Labor – and to renew some of the thousands of local elected officials in England and the Country of Wales, as well as eleven mayors.
According to the results published so far, Labor has gained more than 170 seats and will lead 8 additional local councils, while the Conservatives have lost more than 450 seats and lost control of 10 local councils. The Labor opposition’s substantial gains reinforce its hopes of seeing its leader Keir Starmer arrive at Downing Street after the legislative elections scheduled for later this year. “Today we celebrate the beginning of a page being turned, one of the last stages before the legislative elections,” Keir Starmer welcomed again on Saturday in Mansfield, in the East Midlands, where he celebrated the election from the Labor mayor, Clare Ward. “Let’s turn the page on decline and launch national renewal with Labor,” he concluded.
Labor on track for the legislative elections?
But Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is struggling to unify the conservatives, again defended his policies this Saturday, in particular his plan to deport migrants to Rwanda and his tax cuts. “Labor did not win in places where they admitted they had to win” to obtain a majority at the end of the next legislative elections. “Only conservatives have a plan” for the country, he assured in an article published in the conservative newspaper The Telegraph.
All is not rosy either for Labor, which lost votes due to its position considered by some of its voters to be too pro-Israeli on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He benefited more from “a desire (of voters) to beat the conservatives” than from an “enthusiasm” towards him, said John Curtice, professor of political science. But, according to him, “nothing in these results disturbs the long-created impression that Labor is on track to win the next general election.”
Before the result was announced in London, Labor had already won two municipal elections on Saturday, in Liverpool and South Yorkshire (Sheffield). On Friday, four results have already been announced, with the election of three Labor mayors in the East Midlands, the North East and York and North Yorkshire – where the Prime Minister’s constituency is located -, while the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley was re-elected.
This rare good news was welcomed by Rishi Sunak, who came to congratulate the winner and see it as a sign that the Conservatives can still turn things around before the legislative elections. According to the British media, it has also undoubtedly contributed to attenuating, for the moment, the rebellion within the Tories. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “saved his head” thus underlines The Times.