Day began with hope for Tories but ended with Sadiq Khan back as mayor

It was a day that began with some hope – or was it wishful thinking – that Sadiq Khan might be ousted in London by his Tory rival, heralding a revival in fortunes for party and government.

But it ended with Mr Khan cruising to a comfortable victory and an unprecedented third term in City Hall.

Reality, cold and unflinching, began to dawn the moment results started to come in.

Shortly after 12.30pm it was announced that in Merton and Wandsworth Mr Khan had secured 84,725 votes compared to 50,976 for Susan Hall.

In Greenwich and Lewisham he was ahead with 83,792 votes compared to 36,822 votes for Ms Hall.

The two results saw respective swings of 5.1 per cent and 4.5 per cent from Tory to Labour since 2021, leaving Labour supporters increasingly confident that would be reflected across the capital.

As more results for the London Mayoral race began to come in Prof Sir John Curtice said there was a “pretty good indication” Mr Khan would win a third term.

“These are good results for Sadiq Khan and I think a lot of the speculation which emerged late last night and this morning has probably proven to be misplaced,” he told the BBC.

Indeed, shortly before 2pm Labour sources – bolstered by Mr Khan having just taken West Central by 54,481 to 43,405 – began to call the race for their man.

The result in West Central was a huge blow for Ms Hall, coming in a constituency where Shaun Bailey had beaten Mr Khan in 2021.

“If the Conservatives were fuelling their hopes last night they must feel rather flat today,” Sir John told the BBC, with characteristic understatement.

Ms Hall’s first win of the day, in Bexley and Bromley – where she obtained 111,216 votes compared to 48,952 for Mr Khan – came as little comfort.

While Ms Hall was able to win some outer London boroughs – no doubt a partial reflection of discontent at Mr Khan’s expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone – it was not going to be enough.

At 3.57pm the Press Association announced Mr Khan had been re-elected Mayor of London for a third term.

For all the talk of a close run race or even upset, he had won by 11 per cent, polling 43.8 per cent of the vote to Ms Hall’s 32.7 per cent, with a majority of 276,428.

Following a bitter campaign, there was obvious tension between Mr Khan and his Conservative rival as the results were announced. As Ms Hall went to congratulate the mayor, it appeared that he initially failed to spot her hand, belatedly shaking it.

Mr Khan’s victory speech was briefly disrupted by boos from the far-Right party Britain First, whose candidate walked off the stage while heckling the mayor with a shout of “Khan killed London”.

The electoral irrelevance of Britain First was underlined by the fact that the party was outpolled by Count Binface – a satirical candidate who describes himself as a “intergalactic space warrior, leader of the Recyclons from Planet Sigma IX, Lovejoy fan, London mayor candidate, and expert form-filler”.

In his speech, Mr Khan attacked “fearmongering” and “Right-wing populism” as he addressed supporters.

“We faced a campaign of non-stop negativity but I could not be more proud that we answered fearmongering with facts, hate with hope and attempts to divide with efforts to unite. We ran a campaign that was in keeping with the spirit and values of this great city.

“A city that regards our diversity not as a weakness but as an almighty strength, and one that rejects hard, Right-wing populism and looks forward not back.”

Ms Hall meanwhile used her own speech to attack Mr Khan’s record on crime.

“The thing that matters to them most, and to me, is reforming the Met and making London safe again,” she said. “I hope Sadiq makes this his top priority. He owes it to the families of those thousand people who have lost lives to knife crime under his mayoralty.

“And I hope too that he stops patronising people like me who care. This isn’t an episode of The Wire. This is real life. On his watch.”

Conservative recriminations

Recriminations quickly broke out over the Conservative Party’s handling of their mayoral challenge.

Paul Scully, the MP for Sutton and Cheam and former London minister, said the party had “shot ourselves in the foot right from the beginning”.

He said the decision to choose Ms Hall had been a “selection failure” and claimed that she was too Right-wing for London.

Highlighting a controversial incident where Ms Hall had liked a picture of Enoch Powell on Twitter, he said: “You can’t get away with saying ‘oh I accidentally liked Enoch Powell tweets’. I don’t get Enoch Powell tweets in my feed... so that sort of smacks of wider concerns.”

Mr Scully had initially sought the Tory mayoral nomination but did not make the shortlist, with three other candidates taken through: Ms Hall, the former No 10 adviser Daniel Korski, and the KC Mozammel Hossain.

Mr Scully’s omission from the shortlist in favour of Mr Hossain – a relatively unknown candidate with no previous political experience who was quickly dubbed “Mystery Moz” – raised eyebrows.

Korski groping allegations

The selection process was then thrown into further chaos when Mr Korski withdrew from the contest following groping allegations which he denied.

Mr Scully said that the party missed an opportunity at that point to redraw the shortlist.

“When the shortlist was going wrong when Daniel Korski was taken out, we could have taken a different course of action, but I think Conservative Campaign Headquarters [CCHQ] didn’t treat these elections seriously,” he said.

He said the Tories had then run a campaign which was too negative and that Mr Khan was “there for the taking”.

“The campaign has all been about ‘keep mentioning Sadiq Khan and just saying he’s inadequate’,” he said. “You can’t sit there, get in the mud and be just throwing things at the mayor. You’ve got to come up with a positive vision.”

Asked whether CCHQ had written off the mayoral contest from the beginning, he said: “Yeah... I think that’s fair.”

‘We defied the polls’

A campaign spokesman defended Ms Hall’s performance, saying: “We fought a campaign on common sense conservative principles, and defied the polls.

“Hard work, grit and determination, embodied by our candidate, Susan Hall, boosted our vote significantly above the parties polling in this great city.

“Our message overperformed, our candidate won over hundreds of thousands of Londoners with a plain speaking honest campaign.”

Sir Keir Starmer, who early in the day had said he was “confident” that Mr Khan would win, hailed the result.

Despite not always seeing eye to eye with Mr Khan, he posted on social media: “Congratulations to my friend Sadiq Khan for winning an historic third term as mayor.

“Londoners have voted for delivery over headlines, hope over fear, and unity over division.”

He also hinted at the possibility that Mr Khan could soon be working with a Labour Government in Westminster for the first time since becoming mayor in 2016.

Sir Keir said: “I look forward to working with him as he continues to deliver for London.”