London Mayoral election result: Sadiq Khan finally confirmed as new Mayor with 1.3m votes

Pippa Crerar7 May 2016

Sadiq Khan made history today as he roared to victory in the London mayoral race.

The capital turned red for the first time in eight years as the Labour MP beat Tory Zac Goldsmith to the city’s top job by more than 300,000 votes.

His official coronation had been delayed over "small discrepancies" that election officials are now working on correcting. The declaration was finally made just before 12.30am on Saturday.

Mr Khan picked up 1,148716 first preference votes and 161,427 second preference votes, for a total of 1,310,143.

Mr Goldsmith won 909,755 votes in the first round and 84,859 in the second, for a total of 994,614.

Mr Khan's victory will be a major boost to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn after his party slumped to third place in Scotland and achieved mixed results in council elections across England.

Applause: Sadiq Khan is congratulated by his opponents, including Zac Goldsmith, left
Carl Court/Getty Images

It means City Hall will be run by a Labour mayor for the first time since his predecessor Ken Livingstone was beaten by Mr Johnson in 2008.

The Tooting MP has been the frontrunner throughout a bitterly fought contest during which his rival was attacked for running a negative campaign focusing on his extremist links.

Mr Goldsmith drew criticism from opponents as well as from some members of his own party.

Mr Khan ran an upbeat and energetic campaign which made the most of Labour’s impressive grassroots organisation in London and his back story as a council-estate born son of a bus driver.

He has promised that his priorities on day one in the job will be getting to grips with the housing crisis and a full review of the security services’ readiness to deal with a major incident.

One of Mr Khan's first tasks will be to try to heal some of the wounds inflicted on London's diverse communities during the mayoral race.

He is also expected to reassure Jewish Londoners that he is aware of their concerns amid Labour's ongoing anti-Semitism controversy.

Workers at a count at Kensington Olympia
Getty

Major pledges included freezing transport fares for the next four years and tackling some of the “flabbiness” at Transport for London.

He has guaranteed that 50 per cent of all new homes would be affordable and that Londoners would get “first dibs” on homes built on public land.

He has described himself as the “Muslim mayor who will be tough on extremism”, would restore neighbourhood policing and has suggested Met Police chief Sir Bernard Hogan Howe would be on probation.

International commentators have observed that London electing a Muslim mayor would send out a powerful message globally about the capital’s diversity.

Ahead of the result there were already rumours circling about the make-up of Mr Khan’s top team with former transport secretary Andrew Adonis, widely respected across the political spectrum, tipped for the transport role.

Polling Day - London Mayoral Elections

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But the appointment of the crossbench peer, who previously backed Mr Khan’s rival Tessa Jowell, would be greeted with dismay by the Greens who fear his passion for road-building and suggest he did not “get” air pollution.

Mr Khan has said he will stand down from his Tooting seat prompting a by-election in the South London marginal.

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