Sadiq Khan found himself in an awkward situation as he gave an interview live on air where he appeared to call the Labour party “anti-semitic”. The Mayor of London was discussing tackling a rise in anti-Semitism incidents on Sky News as he stood outside Highbury and Islington overground station.
In 2023, there were over 4,000 incidents reported to police, with tensions between Israel and Palestine seemingly causing a rise in hostility in the UK. But discussing how he was planning on tackling the rise in the capital, Sadiq Khan accidentally called his own party “anti-Semitic”.
He said: “As far as I’m concerned, it shouldn’t be acceptable in a party like mine, that is both proud to be anti-racist but also anti-Semitic.”
Quickly realising his mistake, he backtracked, saying: “I beg your pardon, tackling antisemitism.” The clip was quickly shared on social media platform X, with one person simply writing: “Oh dear.”
It comes as the Mayor has been forced to defend spending £6.3m of public money on a “vanity project” renaming and recolouring six London Overground lines.
The Lioness, Mildmay, Windrush, Weaver, Suffragette and Liberty lines were revealed by the Labour Mayor, but Tories quickly slammed the ‘virtue signalling nonsense’, including rival Susan Hall.
Conservative London Mayor candidate Susan Hall said: “A thousand people have been killed [through knife crime] under his Mayoralty, and yet Sadiq Khan is only interested in this virtue signalling nonsense. The only surprise from today’s announcement is that he hasn’t named one of them the Sadiq line.
“The Central line is in a terrible state, TfL is wasting money left, right and centre, crime on the Tube is soaring, and Sadiq Khan is ignoring all of this to focus on his own PR.”
She added: “I will listen to Londoners, fix the problems with TfL and get a grip of crime.”
Express.co.uk has approached Mayor of London for comment.
