What should Labour learn from Sadiq Khan? Take a stand – and don’t back down

Sadiq Khan on the Millennium Bridge, London, before his swearing in ceremony as the capital’s mayor on Tuesday. Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AP

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, but I never doubted that Sadiq Khan would win re-election as the city’s mayor – even when rumours of a surprise upset were being breathlessly repeated. Of course, Labour has always had the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But this has meant that the party is all too often fearful in the face of large opinion poll leads, with an electoral strategy defined by the lessons of painful defeats.

The time has come to learn from winning, and where better to start than Khan’s win in London. This was, to borrow the words of the former Australian Labor prime minister Paul Keating, the “sweetest victory of all” – a victory for the true believers. What has gained Khan the two largest personal mandates in British electoral history has been his politics.

The London mayoralty was the inspiration for the metro mayors who are now such a firm fixture of English politics. And it broke so much new ground. Ken Livingstone was the first mayor – and, like Ben Houchen, re-elected Conservative mayor of Tees Valley last week, Livingstone ran against his party. He saw transport as critical, something that Andy Burnham has picked up with Manchester’s Bee Network and Steve Rotheram with Merseyrail, which is setting a template for Labour’s renationalisation of rail.

This is the real politics of devolution. Creating leaders with their own mandates and voices – politicians whose innovations can be copied. In Khan’s case, his lessons for Labour are about navigating the changing contours of British politics.

Currently, political discourse remains relentlessly focused on the battle on the right of British politics. The 26-point swing to Labour in Blackpool South was barely discussed. Not because it was the fifth swing of more than 20% from Tories to Labour in this parliament – a record better than New Labour in the run-up to 1997 – but rather because the Reform party were held in third place by the Tories.

Who cares? Really, who cares – apart from Rishi Sunak and No 10 – about the battles within, and for, a third of British voters? Labour’s dominance in the polls seems to have obscured the core fact that the future of the country – and the success or failure of the Labour party – is bound up with the other two-thirds of voters who are supporting progressive parties.

Adopting modern marketing speak, Keir Starmer’s Labour has identified its “hero voters” and focused relentlessly on them. While this was understandable following the rout of the 2019 election and the collapse of parts of the “red wall” into Tory hands, the fact is that the real realignment in British politics is on the centre left. Labour needs to worry about losing votes to the Lib Dems, Greens and independents rather than fixate on one particular image of rightwing voters.

When you’re on 45% in the polls, half of all voters should be your “heroes” – and Khan gets that. He called Gaza right, speaking out for a ceasefire on 27 October last year when it was becoming clear that the humanitarian case was becoming overwhelming. It was a moral position, but it was also a recognition of what Labour’s base wanted – young Londoners, graduates and ethnic-minority voters. London Labour didn’t face the same challenge of independents that took seats across England and got almost one in eight votes in the West Midlands mayoral campaign. Khan knows political representation is a dialogue – you lead, but you also need to follow, or rather channel, your electorate.

And he isn’t afraid to lead. The expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) didn’t create a powerful car lobby – that has existed for a long time. His triumph over that lobby is instructive and will be critical in Labour’s first term in government, should it win – the need to replace fuel duty with road charging will become urgent because of revenue being lost by the transition to electric vehicles. Khan understood that in London there is a majority for clean air: he squeezed the progressive vote, winning the support of a Lib Dem voters in the capital, and seeing the Green vote fall while his rose. The same is likely to be true elsewhere.

He also stands and fights. The mayor didn’t back off when Ulez was attacked – he stood his ground. That’s a model for Labour, which needs to be seen to stand for something. He also keeps moving. His policy of free school meals for primary pupils is just the kind of progressive universalism that the Labour party should follow.

The coming general election will show the extent to which the pandemic and the change to working from home – and rising house prices – has exported a Labour-leaning London electorate to the greater south-east of England. Local election results, from Aldershot to Colchester, suggest this is a boost for Starmer’s chances. But Khan’s victory is ultimately a vindication that, in the end, good policies are good politics.

John McTernan was political secretary to Tony Blair and is now a political strategist for BCW