Sadiq Bashing Not Racist, Honestly

The competition, such as it is, for the Tory nomination to challenge Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan for the London Mayoralty has produced a shortlist so underwhelming that even the Evening Standard - formerly unswerving supporters of Tory hopefuls - has run a front page today asking the all-too-obvious question “HAVE THE TORIES GIVEN UP ON LONDON”?

An editorial makes the further claim that Sadiq Khan is “beatable”, on the basis of a single YouGov poll from April, where 50% of those responding said the Mayor was doing “badly”. As a similar percentage said the same thing about Rishi Sunak, the argument goes that, with the right candidate, The Blue Team could win the capital. That’s a serious voting day extrapolation.

There is an awful lot of straw-clutching and false optimism going on here. The Standard does at least give a brutally honest assessment of the three Tory hopefuls, not least Daniel Korski, now standing accused of groping a woman at a Downing Street meeting some years back. The party isn’t going to bar him from the shortlist. So now his accuser has made her complaint formal.

Another of the three, Moz Hussein, was “most famous for employing in his campaign members of staff who appeared in the lockdown-busting ‘jingle and mingle’ party”. And the third hopeful? Susan Hall, of whom the Standard notes “her values will not necessarily chime with a majority of Londoners, given her support for Donald Trump and her comparison of anti-Brexit protests with those who stormed the US Capitol.”

Could it get worse? Don’t ask: “She has also suggested the black community has ‘problems with crime’ and found time to call reality TV star Gemma Collins a ‘stupid fat blonde woman’”.There was also her slavish devotion to disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

“Brilliant speech as is so often the case from [Boris Johnson] - we must never forget, he gave us Brexit - the incredible vaccine roll out and absolute support to Ukraine. Thank you Boris … Boris has my full support, he got Brexit done, secured us life changing vaccines and is a hero in the Ukraine for his help. Now is certainly not time to change”. And she watches GB News.

That much the Standard has spot-on. One tainted by sex pest allegations, another by closeness to lockdown busting, and a third who gives the impression of being away with the fairies. Where the paper goes wrong is the idea that just putting up a half decent candidate - Justine Greening gets a mention here - will see off Sadiq Khan. They are plan flat wrong.

Because, whatever hope one YouGov poll may have brought the Tories, the reality is that much of the opposition to Sadiq Khan does not emanate from the capital’s electorate. Like all the abuse that followed his decision to expand London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). And the latest example of this phenomenon came yesterday following his Refugee Week speech.

The Mayor posted a Tweet telling “This city was built by migrants. By refugees … In the face of hostile, draconian and immoral immigration policies across Europe, we must all show more compassion towards those fleeing their country for a safer life” and almost immediately was shouted down as a “liar” by lots of blue tick accounts with Very Few Actual Followers.

Or blue tick accounts that give every appearance of being based outside the UK. Or blue tick accounts out there on the extreme right. Or a combination of these attributes. So much dissent, much of it abusive but not at all racist, honestly, was generated that at some point yesterday evening a Community Note, also not racist, honestly, was appended to the original Tweet.

It read “The city of London was founded around the year 50 AD. It was built up over nearly two thousand years by people we today call the English. It was not built by migrants/refugees, but by those native to the British Isles”. Bigotry, much? The Community Note has now, thankfully, been removed, but the point has been made. The anti-Sadiq hatred isn’t coming from London.

And let’s not kid ourselves: 99% of the pile-on would not have happened, had the Mayor not been one of those Scary Muslims™. Sadiq Khan is trying to make a positive change for Londoners, and when they get to the ballot box, they will remember that. They won’t care about the racist social media pile-ons, or, indeed, the hyper-partisan whining of the Tories.

If he wants a third term, it’s his for the taking. Just rejoice at that news.

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