Sir Sadiq Khan, London’s Labour mayor, has warned that his party risks being “stonked” in elections across the capital next month as he laid into Sir Keir Starmer’s “omnishambles” choice of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s US ambassador.
Khan, 55, told the FT in an interview that the past few weeks of campaigning ahead of local borough elections on May 7 were “some of the most difficult I can remember” in more than 40 years of knocking on doors across London.
His greatest frustration was reserved for what he claimed was Starmer’s self-inflicted political crisis over Mandelson, which he said made it tough for him and Labour candidates to talk about the good things the party had delivered.
“I’d rather be talking about that than be on the defensive talking about the omnishambles of the Mandelson saga,” Khan said. “I’m really frustrated that I can’t talk about the achievements.”
Khan, now in his third term as London mayor, joins other senior Labour figures, including a number of cabinet ministers, to raise concerns about Starmer over the Mandelson affair.
He said: “I’m afraid what will happen is that rather than saying to voters ‘listen, this is the difference that a Labour council, working with a Labour mayor and a Labour government, can make’, people may decide to punish the imperfections of the government.”
Khan said the Mandelson affair had been “an omnishambles from start to finish” and added that Starmer should never have appointed the Labour grandee as UK ambassador to Washington in early 2025.
The London mayor said this clouded Labour achievements such as strengthening rights for tenants, workers’ rights and improved childcare, along with the work done by Labour councillors.
“We’re in danger of being stonked on May 7,” Khan said, referring to elections in the capital’s 32 boroughs. The mayoralty and Greater London Assembly are not being contested until 2028.
Khan, first elected mayor in 2016, has become a vocal voice on Labour’s soft left, a wing of the party that includes potential leadership contenders Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, energy secretary Ed Miliband and former deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner.
But he said that in spite of the Mandelson saga, he thinks the party would be wrong to oust Starmer from Number 10.
Asked if the party should change leader, Khan said: “No. What is the biggest decision I think the PM has had to make in the last six months? It was whether to be dragged into this war in Iran.”
He also backed Starmer’s decision to sack Sir Olly Robbins as head of the Foreign Office for failing to pass on red flags raised about Mandelson’s appointment during the security vetting process. Khan said he would have been “livid” if senior officials withheld “basic information” from him.
He said on the big calls, including the need for Britain to have a closer relationship with the EU, Starmer had been right.
But while the prime minister wants to move closer to the EU single market, the London mayor said he would put “rejoin the EU” at the heart of Labour’s next election manifesto. Would there have to be a second referendum? “No — we don’t need it,” he said.
Khan also criticised Starmer’s “obsession” with targeting Labour “hero voters” who might be inclined to vote for Reform UK, claiming it had opened the door for the Greens to make big inroads among progressive voters in the capital.
“I’m slightly nervous with this ‘hero voter’ strategy, this understandable obsession to chase the Reform voter,” he said. “This could lead to progressive voters feeling, wrongly, the Labour Party isn’t for them.”
A detailed poll from YouGov, released on Tuesday, showed an extremely tight race across the capital on May 7.
Labour is under pressure from all sides. Under the MRP polling analysis, Reform could make gains in the south and eastern areas that border Kent and Essex, including wresting control of Barking and Dagenham from Labour for the first time.
But the Greens are hitting Labour from the left in traditional inner-city strongholds including Hackney and Islington, with a close two-way tussle between Starmer’s party and Zack Polanski’s in nine boroughs.
In a sign of an increasingly fragmented electorate, all five parties, including the Conservatives and Lib Dems, are predicted to end up with control in some areas, and all are polling in double digits across the whole of London.
But the landscape has become highly unpredictable and there are wide margins on each party’s possible eventual showing.
YouGov expects Labour to top the London ballot again but they enjoy only about a quarter of support from voters in the capital at 26 per cent — a 16-point collapse since the 2022 vote — with the Greens snapping at their heels on 22 per cent.
The Conservatives drop nine points to 17 per cent, according to the polling, the Lib Dems stay steady at 15 per cent, up one on 2022, and Reform is at 14 per cent from nowhere.