Labour can and must unite behind Sadiq

The choice of London Labour’s selectorate for our 2016 mayoral candidate has been announced, and in a (partial) upset victory, its Sadiq Khan.

I won’t lie when I say my preference was Tessa Jowell, the one-time frontrunner for the nod (I also very much liked David Lammy and attended a launch event of his back in May, but he was always very much an underdog). Tessa had a good record managing the 2012 Olympic bid and launching Sure Start in the last Labour government, she was well-liked among Londoners and I also admired the fact that she stood down from the Commons in order to commit herself fully to the mayoralty. I do very much hope the party finds a place for her in the coming years, as Labour has big fights ahead and will still need her talents.

Tessa’s undoing was probably being tagged as the “Blairite” candidate in the eyes of many of the affiliate union voters and £3 registered supporters, while much of the enthusiasm from these two generally pro-Corbyn groups in the selectorate trickled down-ballot to help Sadiq and Diane Abbott (Abbott’s preferences then went to Sadiq in the final round). As a result, many on the right of the party will be disappointed by this result. But it is important not to overreact.

First, the result takes some pressure off. If Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader today, on top of his supporters helping to select Sadiq, the narrative will be that the defeated “Blairites” have lost their influence in the party. This could make it easier for modernisers to distance themselves, quietly regroup and avoid blame for the consequences of a Corbyn leadership.

Second, Sadiq was a close frontbench ally of Ed Miliband, with essentially soft-left social democratic politics, and so the prophecies of doom from a few ultra-Blairites and the Tory chicken-counting that greeted his selection are both undue. Ed Miliband’s leadership may have been a disaster for Labour nationally on May 7^th, but the party fared relatively well in London specifically. It’s also worth remembering that Ken Livingstone, over on the hard-left of the party with Corbyn, was able to get elected twice in London. Tessa might still have been a safer bet to win the outer suburbs that sunk Livingstone in his last two bids for mayor, especially with the Tories likely to pick a candidate able to make inroads into Labour’s liberal central London stronghold in Zac Goldsmith, but it’s far too soon to declare Sadiq “unelectable”.

Sadiq’s story is an inspiring one. He was born into an immigrant family; the son of a bus driver and a seamstress who grew up with seven siblings in a south London council flat. From those beginnings, he worked his way up to become a successful human rights lawyer, and was involved in landmark cases around discrimination and policing before entering public life. Though Labour should probably resist the temptation to try to dwell on the contrast with Goldsmith’s Old Etonian background, Khan’s is a fitting narrative for a man who aspires to be the executive of a great cosmopolitan city like our capital.

He also has significant political acumen. He was first elected to parliament in 2005, but he came to the fore in 2010, when his against-the-odds survival in Tooting and the chants of “yes we Khan!” at the count that night served as a symbol of the Tories’ failure to secure their expected majority that year. Alongside his shadow Justice post under Miliband, he was also shadow Minister for London, crafting Labour’s policies for the city, and he oversaw the party’s 2015 effort in London, which saw seven seats gained and several Tory incumbents knocked off.

His campaign has been supported by voices from across the party – significantly, he was joint-endorsed by Livingstone and Oona King, and by Margaret Hodge, a high-profile supporter of Liz Kendall in the leadership race. My local MP Emily Thornberry (who backed Yvette Cooper for leader and Ben Bradshaw for deputy) has also campaigned for him. And while I and others may have leaned to Tessa on the logic that she would most be able to win, Hodge and King made a convincing point in a recent New Statesman article about Khan’s three wins in his marginal constituency (“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”).

In terms of his vision for London, housing has been a focus of Sadiq’s in the campaign, a major issue in the capital and a source of generational anxiety that has led many young people to back Corbyn in the leadership race. His ideas include a London Living Rent, a 50% requirement for affordable housing on new developments and a crackdown on ‘buy-to-leave’ homes. In transport, a key mayoral responsibility, he will control fares, battle the government on the third runway at Heathrow and take more rail services under TFL control. He has stressed tackling extremism and rebuilding Labour’s tattered relationship with London’s sizable Jewish community (vital in light of some of the controversies that have dogged Corbyn). And he has made clear his intention to be a pro-worker, pro-enterprise mayor, committed to a rise in the Living Wage while aiming to be “the most pro-business mayor London’s ever had” (Sadiq has noted that he ran a successful law firm, taking it from two to 50 employees).

So whoever we backed for mayor, and whatever the outcome in the leader and deputy leader elections, Labourites can all take heart from the selection of Sadiq. I look forward to hitting the streets to campaign for him – we’ve only got eight months to canvass a city of eight million, so there’s no time to waste if we wish to take back the city we love for the party we love.