Sadiq Khan to seek re-election as London mayor for record third term

Sadiq Khan will seek re-election as the mayor of London as the Labour party has chosen him as its candidate for the 2024 election.

If the incumbent succeeds in his bid to win a third term, he will be the first person to achieve the feat in the history of the British capital. Khan, whose first mayoral term began in 2016 was re-elected to post last year after the vote was delayed due to the pandemic.

Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, who went on to become the prime minister, are the only others who served two consecutive terms as the city’s mayor.

Local Labour functionaries endorsed Khan’s nomination on Tuesday night amid the falling popularity of the Conservative party.

The election will be contested under a traditional first-past-the-post ballot or choose-one voting rather than a two-vote system for the first time.

Khan said the May 2024 election would be an opportunity for Londoners to “send a message” to the Conservatives about the state of the economy, Evening Standard reported.

“I’m more determined than ever to use all the experience and knowledge I’ve gained as mayor to deliver on the issues that matter to Londoners, including supporting them through the cost-of-living crisis,” said Khan, whose parents came to the UK from Pakistan in 1968.

“It’s going to be a very tough election – the first using the first-past-the-post voting system in London and the new voter ID rules that appear deliberately designed to disenfranchise minority communities and disproportionately affect Labour voters.”

However, Susan Hall, the Conservative party’s leader in the London Assembly, said the city could ill afford another term for Khan.

“He has hit the poorest with punitive taxes, allowed the Met Police and London Fire Brigade to fall into special measures, and treated City Hall like his own personal PR machine,” she told MailOnline.