London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, who is a member of the Labour Party, has accused the former U.S. president, Donald Trump, of criticizing him during his first term (2017-2021) because of his “skin color” and Muslim faith.
In a podcast aired this week but recorded before the U.S. elections on November 5, Khan stated, “He was attacking someone whose policies were sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and racist.” Khan has consistently had a tense relationship with Trump. In 2019, Trump referred to Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital, as having done a “very bad job on terrorism,” calling him a “total failure.”
Khan, whose parents were Pakistani immigrants, had previously accused Trump of “hard-right populism” before approving a giant inflatable depiction of Trump as a baby during a London protest in June 2019.
Speaking about Trump’s attacks, Khan remarked, “If I didn’t have this skin color, if I wasn’t Muslim, he wouldn’t attack me. This affects me and my family. But what worries me isn’t myself or my family. What worries me is that this is the leader of the free world.”
Khan’s comments about the newly elected president contrast with the stance of the British Labour Party. Prime Minister Keir Starmer quickly congratulated Trump on his “historic electoral win” and described his call with the Republican leader as “very positive, very constructive,” stating that the “special” relationship between the UK and the U.S. would “flourish” during Trump’s second term.
