In order to change our country for the better, Labour needs to win elections. That applies to every election we fight – whether for local government seats, devolved Parliaments, city Mayors or general elections. The first opportunity we have to show that we have learnt the lessons of the past five years is next May, in elections to Scottish parliament, the Welsh Assembly and of course for London Mayor. We firmly believe that the candidate best placed to win in London for Labour is Sadiq Khan.
London is changing. Our city is becoming younger and more diverse. Nearly half of all Londoners are now minority ethnic and the average age of Londoners is 34. If we are to win over these voters, we need to hand over to the next generation. We need a candidate who can win over all Londoners – regardless of age, income or ethnicity. Just this week Sadiq showed his intentions to win over voters who have left Labour, reaching out to Jewish voters in London, who abandoned us in 2012 and 2015.
And he understands that insecurity is something that reaches right up the income scale: middle class professionals worry not only about jobs, housing and school places, but the cost of childcare and transport, and the safety of the city where so many raise their children.
Sadiq is the only candidate for Labour’s nomination who has fought and won a marginal seat. Winning tough seats like Tooting requires candidates to reach out and win support from people not naturally inclined to vote Labour. Tooting is a microcosm of London – with some areas of urban poverty with a large ethnic minority population, but much of the constituency is leafy, suburban and affluent. Sadiq has now won Tooting three times, including in 2010 when he was the top Tory target seat in London and faced a flood of activists money. We need a candidate for Mayor who knows what it takes to win.
Sadiq is the only candidate who has run a successful London-wide campaign. He led the 2014 Borough and European election campaign in the capital, where Labour achieved our best results in a generation. We won control of an additional five Boroughs, mostly in outer London, in places like Croydon, Redbridge and Harrow. And we won half of London’s eight MEPs for the first time ever.
Sadiq also led Labour’s general election campaign in London. London was the only region of the UK in which Labour made a net gain of seats. We held all 38 Labour seats and made seven additional gains, winning back seats lost in 1983, 2003, 2005 and 2010. We won 44% of the vote – our best result since 2001. And all this against a backdrop of failure and losses across the rest of the UK. The campaign even won plaudits from Tories and LibDems.
That’s why we’re backing Sadiq for Mayor. Because he is the candidate best placed to win the Mayoralty for Labour and take the first step on the long road back to power.
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