Tag: Sadiq Khan

Calling out and isolating extreme voices is part of leadership. With his article (May’s inaction is helping Islamophobia go mainstream, 2 April), Sadiq Khan has chosen to play politics on a serious issue. For the problem is much bigger than that, as evidenced by people like Tommy Robinson and his ilk. By dwelling on past comments and a mistaken retweet – things for which I’ve already apologised – Mr Khan seeks to entrench divisions instead of heal wounds. If we only look back we’ll never move forward. I try not to resent the entire Labour party, for example, because Emma Dent Coad MP once called me a “token ghetto boy”. I will not be looking to rehash any of Mr Khan’s previous comments; rather, his record as mayor of London will be my target. My plea to Mr Khan is this: can we please move on from the Punch and Judy politics that so many people are now sick to death with? This is the sort of election race I would like to run, discussing the things that matter most to Londoners and talking about how to move our city forward. Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition

Minicab drivers are launching a legal action against the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, accusing him of discrimination against a largely ethnic minority workforce by making them pay the congestion charge while black cab drivers, who are overwhelmingly white, will be exempt. But the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represents many Uber drivers and other gig economy workers, claims it amounts to indirect discrimination and violates the human rights of its members. Until now, minicabs and black cabs have been exempt from the existing £11.50 congestion charge. When the ULEZ charge is levied, the cost to about 18,000 minicab drivers estimated by City Hall to carry passengers in central London each day is likely to be more than £1.4m a week. It could push down earnings for Uber drivers, which have been estimated by academics at about £11 per hour, by about 13% over an eight-hour shift. It argues the decision is in breach of the UK Equality Act and the European convention on human rights that protects property rights and which has been interpreted as protecting people’s ability to carry out their profession. “If Sadiq Khan doesn’t reverse this policy we will continue to fight it in the courts and in the streets.” A spokeswoman for the mayor said: “The number of private hire vehicles entering the congestion charge zone has shot up from 4,000 a day in 2003 to more than 18,000 now. Sadiq simply isn’t prepared to ignore the damaging impact this has on congestion and increasing air pollution. Congestion has a crippling impact on businesses across the capital. “At the same time, our toxic air in London is a major public health crisis that is stunting the lung development of our children, leading to thousands of premature deaths, and increases the risk of asthma and dementia.” City Hall said that private hire drivers who wished to avoid the charge could switch to a low-emissions vehicle or drive a vehicle that was accessible for wheelchairs.

The mayor hailed the event, in which the London Eye was lit up in the blue-and-yellow colours of the EU flag, as part of a wider message to Europe that the capital would stay “open-minded” and “outward looking” after Brexit. As the fireworks went off along the Thames, the words “London is open” were said in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Spanish just after midnight. The event also featured musical performances by European artists. “We, in my opinion, are one of the greatest cities in the world; one of the reasons we are one of the greatest cities in the world is because of the contribution made by Europeans,” Khan said before the display. “I hope that members of parliament, members of the government will see the fireworks tonight, will listen to the soundtrack and will reflect on what sort of country they want to live in post-March.” He said the display was about “showing the world, while they’re watching us, that we’re going to carry on being open-minded, outward looking, pluralistic”. Andrew Bridgen, a Conservative MP with an occasional sideline in Brexit-based hyperbole, said the message had been “a betrayal of democracy”, telling the Sun: “It’s low, it’s very low to politicise what is an international public event.” Roger Helmer, a former Conservative MEP who defected to Ukip, tweeted: “While the UK is locked in critical negotiations with Brussels, Sadiq Khan chooses to display the other side’s flag on the London Eye. Would he have shown an Argentinian flag during the Falklands war?” The anti-Brexit message is in keeping with Khan’s wider views on Brexit, where his public expressions are notably different from the pledges to respect the verdict of the 2016 referendum made regularly by the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Khan, who took over the mayoralty from Boris Johnson and plans to stand for another four-year term in 2020, has argued for a special Brexit deal for London, to protect both the contribution of its high population of EU nationals, and the financial institutions of the City. In September, Khan said the time wasted by Theresa May and the risk posed by a no-deal Brexit meant he was supporting a second referendum, which should include the option of staying in the EU. A large-scale fireworks display on the Thames has gradually become a regular part of London’s New Year’s Eve celebrations since one was organised for the millennium celebrations.

Writing in the Observer, Sadiq Khan says that, with so little time left to negotiate, there are now only two possible outcomes: a bad deal for the UK or “no deal” at all, which will be even worse. “They are both incredibly risky and I don’t believe Theresa May has the mandate to gamble so flagrantly with the British economy and people’s livelihoods,” he writes. “This means a public vote on any Brexit deal obtained by the government, or a vote on a ‘no-deal’ Brexit if one is not secured, alongside the option of staying in the EU,” he writes. More than 100 anti-Brexit motions, and motions backing another referendum, or people’s vote, have been submitted by constituency parties – believed to be a record for any single issue in the party’s recent history. A large number of the motions are from the left of the party, and call for a commitment to a people’s vote to be inserted into Labour’s next general election manifesto. The people must have another vote – to take back control of Brexit Read more Sam Tarry, national political officer of the TSSA union, who used to work for Corbyn, said the left of the Labour party was uniting behind demands for another vote: “The sheer weight of anti-Brexit motions going to conference is unlike anything I have ever seen – and the only force in the Labour party capable of pulling that off is the left. The trade union movement has moved quickly towards an anti-Tory Brexit position this summer. Alena Ivanova, a leading activist for the grassroots group Momentum in east London, said: “This is a campaign now being led by the left... Tory Brexit is a fundamental threat to the rights and prosperity of working-class people and the communities that Labour represents, driven by bosses and rightwing ideologues. We will only stop it with unashamed leftwing internationalism and, crucially, that will also help us in the campaign to get the Corbyn government we need.” Recognition of the case for a new referendum also appears to be growing in Tory circles. On Saturday the Conservative MP George Freeman, a former chair of Theresa May’s policy board, said on Twitter that pressure for a second vote would become “overwhelming” should moderate Conservatives fail to shape a sensible Brexit deal.

LONDON – The U.K. woke Friday to discover that President Trump had thrown fuel onto the country’s already fiery political debate -- on a day in which he will hold a joint press conference with under-siege Prime Minister Theresa May, meet with Queen Elizabeth II and witness tens of thousands of demonstrators march through London in protest of his three-day working visit. The looming press conference was made immeasurably more awkward after The Sun published an extraordinary interview with Trump, in which the president doubled down on his criticism of May’s approach to handling Britain’s departure from the European Union. “No, if they would do that I would say that that would probably end a major trade relationship with the United States.” While he did praise May in the interview, he also said May had not taken his advice on Brexit, something he said was “fine.” “I would have done it much differently. That plan sparked the resignation of a number of officials, including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis. “I am just saying that he would be a great Prime Minister. "The President likes and respects Prime Minister May very much. As he said in his interview with the Sun she 'is a very good person' and he 'never said anything bad about her,'" White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. He is thankful for the wonderful welcome from the Prime Minister here in the U.K.” Trump’s interview dominated the country’s TV and radio discussions, MPs Twitter feeds, and the newspaper headlines -- all focusing on Trump’s opening salvo against May. “May’s Brexit will kill US trade deal, says Trump,” ran The Times of London. In London, the prime minister’s allies desperately tried to blunt the damage of what has been a chaotic week for May as she struggles to keep her cabinet and party united over Brexit.

British government in crisis amid Brexit resignations and an incoming visit from U.S. President Trump. Fox News contributor Nigel Farage sounds off on 'The Story.' FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news…

Labour’s Janet Daby has won the Lewisham East byelection and immediately promised to oppose a hard Brexit, after the party’s margin of victory was cut by a resurgent Liberal Democrats in the heavily pro-remain seat. Daby took just over 50% of the vote in the south-east London constituency, ahead of the Lib Dems’ Lucy Salek, who won 25% of the vote – a 20 percentage point rise in the party’s share of the vote – to leapfrog the Conservatives and take second place. The Conservative share fell by 8 percentage points after their candidate, Ross Archer, won less than 9% of the votes. Labour held Lewisham East with 50.2% of the vote – down 17.75 points since June 2017 Standfirst ... % 0% 10 20 30 40 50 Lab Janet Daby 50.2% (11,033 votes) Lib Dem Lucy Salek 24.59% (5,404) Con Ross Archer 14.38% (3,161) Green Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah 3.59% (788) Women’s Equality Mandu Reid 2.30% (506) Ukip David Kurten 1.73% (380) Guardian Graphic | Turnout 69.28% (47,201) Daby won a closely contested internal Labour battle to run for the safe seat vacated by Heidi Alexander, who quit parliament to work with the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. “I will oppose an extreme or a hard Brexit,” she said. “I will consider people’s jobs, the economy and people’s rights, and that will dictate to me the precedent in how I will conduct myself both within parliament and out of parliament.” The Labour share of the vote fell by almost 18 percentage points from the 2017 election, and, with a much-reduced turnout from last year, Daby secured a majority of 5,629, compared with the 21,213 seen by Alexander. A Lib Dem bounce in Lewisham cannot shift Labour’s Brexit stance | Owen Jones Read more The Lib Dems claimed the swing was the biggest against Labour in a seat since 2004, and the most significant since 1983 when Labour was in opposition. “This is the largest swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats in over a decade and the failure of Labour’s leadership to oppose the Conservatives’ hard Brexit cannot be hidden or forgotten.” Salek said the result showed the party was “the real opposition here. #LewishamEast June 15, 2018 Asked how much distance there was between her and Corbyn’s views on Brexit, Daby said: “In terms of the single market, our Labour view on this is that we would have a new single market where we have the same access that we presently do. “In terms of Jeremy Corbyn, I voted for Jeremy Corbyn twice in the leadership election and obviously within politics not everybody will agree on everything.” The Greens came fourth in the byelection, followed by the Women’s Equality Party.

The Conservatives have been accused of failing to take the issue of Islamophobia seriously by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which is calling for an independent inquiry into a problem it said had “poisoned” sections of the party. Sayeeda Warsi, the party’s former chair, said she had spent more than two years trying and failing to get her successors and Theresa May to engage with the problem, and warned that the Tories faced a wider institutional problem of Islamophobia. 'He inferred I wasn't British': Tory members tell of Islamophobia Read more Labour, which has faced its own recent controversy over antisemitism, said the Conservatives had shown a “systematic leadership failure” on the issue. Khan questioned why no action had been taken against Bob Blackman, the Harrow East MP, after he re-tweeted an anti-Islam message from the hard-right activist Tommy Robinson, and hosted a hardline Hindu nationalist, Tapan Ghosh, in parliament. Blackman said he accidentally re-tweeted the Robinson post and had not known in advance that Ghosh was being invited to last October’s event. MCB (@MuslimCouncil) We are calling for an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party following more than weekly occurrences of Islamophobia in the party last month pic.twitter.com/ymkFRDs5sF May 30, 2018 Warsi, now a Tory peer, said she backed the MCB’s call, adding that it was “a shame” that it could potentially require such a public rebuke for the Conservatives to start treating the subject with proper seriousness. “What I would like to see is, first of all, people within the party stopping denying this is an issue and then starting to acknowledge the extent of the issue, and then setting out a clear pathway of how we’re going to deal with it,” she told Sky News. The MCB letter also cited Goldsmith’s campaign as evidence of a wider problem in the Conservatives with “dog whistle anti-Muslim racism”. If the people who claim to be leading this country are shirking their responsibility to protect all the communities living here, it sends an appalling message. A number of Muslim Conservative party members told the Guardian that they felt the issue had been marginalised, with one saying his reaction to the MCB letter was: “How refreshing - this is something that all Muslim Conservatives are feeling.” Khan’s letter to Lewis called for an independent inquiry into Islamophobia among not just Tory members but also the party’s structures and campaigns.

I look forward to working with her as we strive to create a city that leaves no Londoner behind https://t.co/GkRZSWEiUG The Press Association has helpfully written up a transcript of the Richard Madeley interview with Gavin Williamson. GW: I’d like to pay tribute to the health service personnel who did an amazing job... RM: No sorry, could you answer the question? Could you answer that question, please? Do you regret telling Russia to shut up and go away’? Mr Williamson, please answer the question. Mr Williamson, you are just not answering the question. Could you please answer that question? GW: Well, I think that what everyone saw is Russia’s actions against our citizens in a city here in the United Kingdom... RM: Yes, you’re telling us what we know. We know what happened in Salisbury, we know how atrocious it was, we know how close these people came to death. The question is - I’ll try it one more time - do you regret using very casual Trump-esque language like ‘shut up and go away’?

And one of those is the weather. And now new data shows the alarming impact that extreme weather events can have on things like crime, transport and air quality. With climate predictions suggesting London is increasingly likely to experience more extreme weather patterns moving forward, how should we understand and respond to its impact on the day to day functioning of the city? But figures for March suggest that the cold weather had a significant dampening effect on crime across the capital. After years of rising, often at quite an alarming rate, total crime, violent crime and knife crime all fell in March this year, compared to the same month in 2017. And the hot bank holiday weekend, which saw several violent attacks in the capital, has led some commentators to suggest rising temperatures means more violent crimes. While recent cold weather has affected crime and transport, a longer-term view can show how weather affects other things in the city. While these policies are starting to take an effect, the monthly pollution levels continue to fluctuate, often down to the weather. Policymakers at all levels should attempt to better understand how extreme weather will affect demand for services and their ability to provide these services, among a raft of other things. Some things will be easier to understand and prepare for than others.