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Sadiq Khan’s Historic Win in London

The Labour Party’s mayoral candidate defeated Zac Goldsmith, a Conservative, to become the first Muslim mayor of a major European city.

By Krishnadev Calamur
There is, in fact, only one Sadiq Khan—and he's probably not grimacing right now. (Matt Dunham / AP)

Updated on May 6 at 7:50 p.m. ET

Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants to the U.K., won a historic victory in the London mayoral race, defeating Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative candidate and wealthy scion of a billionaire banker, to become the first Muslim mayor of a major European city.

Khan reclaimed the mayoralty for his Labour Party, succeeding Boris Johnson, the incumbent, who isn’t running.

“My dad would be so proud that the city he chose to call home has chosen one of his children to be Mayor,” Khan said after he was officially named the winner of the race.

But the congratulatory messages had begun long before the official results were declared, coming from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, and others.

(Corbyn, the Labour leader, showing with that hashtag that he Khan’t resist a bad pun.)

The result are a boost for Corbyn, the Labour leader who has steered the party to the left. His opponents within the party had hoped that a poor performance by Labour in the local elections would force Corbyn’s resignation—but despite losing ground in Scotland and Wales, Labour did better than expected in council races in England.

“We have done actually far better than any of the media were predicting we were going to do,” Corbyn told reporters.

In Scotland and Wales, it was another matter.