Sadiq Khan | London Mayor, Labour Politician (2024)

Sadiq Khan (born October 8, 1970, London, England) is a British politician and attorney who was the first Muslim mayor of London (2016– ).

Khan was the fifth of eight children born to Sunni Muslim parents who had arrived in Britain from Pakistan shortly before his birth. He grew up in a rented council-owned apartment; his father was a bus driver. After studying law at the University of North London, Khan qualified in 1994 as a solicitor. He specialized in human rights, often launching cases against the police and government departments. That same year he was elected as a local Labour Party councillor in the London borough of Tooting. After the local Labour MP decided to retire from Parliament, Khan won the contest to succeed him as Labour’s candidate. He was elected to the House of Commons in the 2005 general election, which saw Labour returned to government nationally.

Only weeks after the election, bomb attacks in London by British-born Islamic extremists killed more than 50 people. Khan spoke out fiercely against such actions, saying that the violence reflected the views of a small misguided minority. For a man with his background, it was a risky stance—he received death threats—but that position won him plaudits. In the Spectator magazine’s parliamentary awards ceremony in 2005, he was named Newcomer of the Year. Three years later, in October 2008, Khan was appointed undersecretary of state for communities; a year later he was promoted to minister of state for transport.

Following Labour’s defeat in the 2010 general election, Khan ran Ed Miliband’s successful campaign to become party leader. Khan’s reward was his appointment as justice secretary in the opposition “shadow cabinet.” However, the party failed to prosper under Miliband’s leadership and lost the 2015 general election. Rather than continue on the opposition benches in Parliament, Khan sought and won his party’s nomination as mayor of London in the capital’s 2016 election. The previous two-term Conservative mayor, Boris Johnson, did not seek a third term. Khan’s Conservative opponent, Zac Goldsmith, lacked Johnson’s charisma. With London becoming an increasingly Labour city (Labour won significantly more votes there than the Conservatives did in 2015), Khan defied the expectations of some that his Muslim religion would diminish his appeal. In the runoff election of May 2016, after other, less-popular candidates had been eliminated, he easily defeated Goldsmith. Khan took office later that month.