City Hall Conservatives believe Sadiq Khan’s “problems” since Sir Keir Starmer entered No10 have been exposed as they look to take back the capital in 2028.
London’s top Tories gathered in the ICC on the first day of the party’s 2024 conference in Birmingham for a fringe meeting hosted by ConservativeHome.
Assembly Member Neil Garratt, who was chairing the event, launched a furious attack against Khan just months after the former Tooting MP returned to City Hall to serve for a third-term.
Garratt said: “He’s entering his third-term. He spent two-terms as Mayor of London, every single thing that went wrong was the fault of the Government.
Sadiq Khan won a third-term in May
PA
“He now has a new Government that has created for him two problems. Problem number one, he can’t just blame the Labour Government for all the problems for the Labour Mayor.
“Problem number two, just before the Labour conference, Keir Starmer told him there is no more money, there’s no more money for housing, no more money for police, no more money for 101 mad-crazy schemes that he wants money for.”
The Tory Party’s London Assembly leader, who was returned to represent Croydon & Sutton with a majority of 18,271, added: “It’s going to be an exciting term ahead of us to find out how he does that.”
In a stinging attack against Khan, London-wide Assembly Member Alessandro Georgiou described Khan as an “arrogant little man”, adding: “I emphasise the little.”
Khan’s tenure as Mayor of London received criticism from Conservatives in City Hall on both housing and crime.
Lord Shaun Bailey, who described rent controls as “mental”, said: “£4billion is what the Mayor has in his current affordable housing programme, he’s spent hardly any of that money, he’s only delivered 80 per cent of the homes he has to deliver, he’s going to fail.
London’s top Tories gathered in the ICC on the first day of the party’s 2024 conference in Birmingham for a fringe meeting hosted by ConservativeHome
GB NEWS
“Politically, that is great for us. But we are real Londoners, we don’t want him to fail, we want him to deliver. The best way to deliver would be to have a Conservative Mayor but because we don’t have one we are going to have to push him very hard.”
In 2023, Khan hailed record-breaking levels of housing delivery after pledging to start building 116,000 affordable homes.
However, earlier this year, the Mayor faced fury after Khan fell well-short of his target in August.
On policing, Khan’s 2024 opponent Susan Hall added: “More and more people are dying on our streets. More and more kids are getting stabbed. It’s more and more acceptable, it would appear, to carry knives. We’ve got to be part of the solution.”
Knife crime rose to 15,016 in 2023/24, up from 12,786 the previous year.
However, London’s overall murder rate dropped in the most recent years of Khan’s stint in City Hall, dipping to roughly 12 for every one million people.
The figure neared 30 per million people in 2002 and New York recorded more than 46 murders for every one million people in 2023.
Keir Starmer is set to cause problems for Sadiq Khan according to Tories
GB NEWS
Despite facing a backlash after expanding his carbon-curbing Ulez scheme, Khan defeated Hall after oppening up an 11.1-point lead and receiving 43.8 per cent of the vote on May 2.
The result reflected a downward trajectory for the Tories after Lord Bailey received 35.3 per cent of votes in 2021’s first ballot, increasing his share to 44.8 per cent in his run-off with Khan.
Bailey’s performance was marginally better than Zac Goldsmith’s attempt to challenge Khan ahead of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
City Hall Conservatives hope to emulate Johnson’s two victories in 2008 and 2012 when the 60-year-old received more than 50 per cent of the vote against ex-Mayor Ken Livingstone.
Shaun Bailey described rent controls as “mental”
CONHOME
However, the Tories slumped to just nine Westminster seats on July 4, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats making gains.
The 2024 General Election handed the Tory Party with its worst performance in the capital in modern political history.
Receiving just 20.6 per cent of the vote, Rishi Sunak led the Conservative Party to a slump in London beyond even what Lord William Hague was handed with in 2001 when the Tories obtained just 30.5 per cent.
Reform UK performed marginally better than Ukip had in 2015, with 8.7 per cent of the vote.
Nigel Farage’s populist party could pose a problem after Reform UK ran Tory MPs close in Hornchurch & Upminster and Romford.
Reform UK struggled when Howard Cox stood as its candidate but Farage handed the populist party a much-needed lifeline when he returned as its leader.