In the 2024 London mayor election on 2 May, Sadiq Khan made history by winning a third term against Tory rival Susan Hall, with a notable swing towards Labour. Sadiq received 1,088,225 votes, compared to Susan Hall’s 811,518 – a majority of 276,707 votes!
While previous mayoral elections were done using the 2-round supplementary vote (SV) system, where votes that had the two leading candidates as the voter’s second choice were added in a second count, the government had decided that the 2024 elections should be a straight first-past-the-post election, as the Tories hoped that this would improve the chances for their candidates.
However, in the London mayoral election that plan had the opposite effect: while Sadiq in the 2021 election received 40.0% of the votes in the first round and his Tory opponent, Shaun Bailey received 35.3%, in this election, Sadiq received 43.8%, while Susan Hall only managed 32.7%.
But that’s not all: while Sadiq won both the 2016 and the 2021 mayoral elections overall for London, the majority of voters in the West Central constituency for the London Assembly (comprising Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea and City of Westminster) gave their votes to the Tory candidates in both elections (as they had been doing since the very first mayoral election in 2000). However, this year the majority of West Central voters gave Sadiq their vote for the first time, thus giving Sadiq the majority in nine of the 14 assembly constituencies.
A historic third term for Sadiq Khan in City Hall means Labour can continue delivering for our great city and the residents of Kensington and Bayswater – from building more affordable homes to more police on our streets and keeping our children healthy with free school meals and tougher action on air quality.