London: Labour City
The resounding re-election of Sadiq Khan as London Mayor for an historic third term will not be good news for the Islamophobes and anti-ULEZ fanatics who relentlessly attack him on social media.
The voting system had changed at the behest of the Government so perhaps its no surprise that Labour was twitchy about the result. However in the Starmer era the Party clearly has fewer who are prepared to go out on the knocker and discover what actual voters are thinking so there was perhaps also a disconnect there.
There is rightly anger at Labour’s position on Gaza although Sadiq Khan, whose position has not been ideal, did at least call for a ceasefire before Labour nationally got around to a version of it.
The historian David Olusoga wrote (Standard 3rd October 2023) that ‘the centrality of the capital has made it London)the postal child for resentment at England’s demographic and political power’. While that is undeniably true it’s not the whole picture.
London is also a working class city. It’s here we find of course the HQs of most trade unions and the Labour Party mirroring the power structure of capital. But it’s a city with an organised working class and a labour movement.
As Eric Hobsbawm wrote in his essay on Labour and the Great Cities (New Left Review 1/166) London became and remained a Labour stronghold after 1923 when it elected 20 per cent of the national total of Labour MPs’.
As a labour movement activist and socialist in London for almost 50 years now I’d also note that the London labour movement has echoed that of capital containing people from all over the UK who have come to work in London and indeed people from all over the world who have done likewise and are one of its great strengths.
In London the power of capital is faced by that of organised labour but tempered by the reality that just as the City has areas of great wealth it also has areas of very significant poverty. It’s important to capture all the dimensions here.
Most of all though the election of the London Mayor in 2024 is a resounding two fingers to the bigots from people who actually live and work in the Capital.
Dr Keith Flett is a Convenor of the London Socialist Historians Group, born in North London and resident in Tottenham
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