Sadiq Khan was elected mayor of London last Thursday. His victory is a vote for intelligence and tolerance: Khan is the first Muslim to be elected to the office, and is the first Muslim to be elected mayor of a major European capital. The campaign was an ugly affair, punctuated by dog whistles and attempted smears. London's voters rightly rejected such tactics. We hope voters elsewhere will prove equally resistant to such maneuvers.
Khan was an attractive candidate. He is the son of a bus driver from Pakistan, the fifth of eight children, grew up in public housing and became a human rights lawyer. He was first elected to parliament in 2005 from his home constituency of Tooting, and was appointed a junior minister in 2008, and minister for transport in 2009 under Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He became the first Muslim to attend Cabinet meetings regularly and was admitted to the Privy Council.
While the image of London for most nonresidents is that of the starched financier dressed in bespoke clothes, in fact "white British" only make up 45 percent of the city's population. Thirty-five percent of Londoners were born overseas. Khan's story and narrative have a wide-ranging appeal to this audience. Moreover, London, like many large metropolitan areas, leans to the left, making it a more natural Labour constituency.