London’s incumbent mayor, Labour’s Sadiq Khan, with his wife Saadiya Ahmed outside a polling station in London on Thursday. Photo: Kin Cheung / AP / NTB
Of NTB | 04.05.2024 17:13:56
Policy: Khan won a whopping 43.7 percent of the vote, reports Sky News. That is over 10 percentage points ahead of Conservative challenger Susan Hall. The candidates from the Liberal Democrats and the Greens received around 6 percent each.
The turnout was 40.5 per cent. The British Labor Party had previously feared that low voter turnout would lead to an even battle for the mayoralty.
“Sadiq Khan was absolutely the right candidate,” said British Labor Party leader Keir Starmer as the vote count continued.
The defeat of the Tories in the local elections this week has been described as historic. Millions of Britons cast their ballots in hundreds of constituencies in England and Wales on Thursday. As the results ticked in on Friday, it became clear that Labor has secured power in municipalities the party has not controlled for decades. It also emerged victorious in the by-election in Blackpool South in northern England, where the battle was for a place in Parliament.
If the electoral landslide repeats itself when the British elect a new national assembly, it could mean one of the biggest defeats ever for the Conservatives.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has indicated that the election will be held in the second half of 2024. After the Tories’ decline in the local elections, demands from the opposition have increased that he must call new elections as soon as possible.