LABOUR’S SADIQ KHAN has stormed to victory in the London mayoral election, as the contest for the West Midlands remains on a knife edge for Conservative candidate Andy Street.

Incumbent mayor Khan beat his nearest rival, Tory candidate Susan Hall, in a contest beset by criticism of his decision to expand London’s ultra low emission zone.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said he was confident of Khan’s victory before declarations began, as he counted mayoral victories for his party in Liverpool, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, and in Greater Manchester where Andy Burnham returned to power.

Khan needed to win a simple majority of ballots cast, as the rules for the mayoral race were changed to a first-past-the-post voting system ahead of the latest election.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is meanwhile braced for the West Midlands mayoral election result, hoping incumbent Street could hold on to power for the Conservatives.

A second mayoral victory for the Prime Minister after Friday’s win in Tees Valley by Lord Houchen could act as a bulwark against backbench Tory challenges to his authority.

Starmer issued a fresh challenge to Sunak to call an election as he met Labour’s new East Midlands mayor Claire Ward in Mansfield yesterday,

The Labour leader said: “Fourteen years and, I am sorry, I don’t care which political party you support, if you leave your country in a worse state than when you found it 14 years later, you do not deserve to be in Government for a moment longer.”

He also told reporters he was “confident” Khan has “got another term of delivery in front of him”.

It is the first time any candidate for London mayor has won a third term of office, with Khan’s predecessors Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone both having served two terms.

Khan fought a re-election campaign on promises to end rough sleeping in the capital by 2030, and to take further steps to curtail air pollution and climate change.

Runner-up Hall’s key pledge was to roll back the Ulez expansion which the Labour mayor began last August, a measure she said was part of a “war on motorists”.

With 106 out of 107 of the local councils declared on Saturday, the Conservatives had suffered a drubbing, with a net loss of 396 councillors, and the loss of 10 councils.

Labour won control of eight councils with a net gain of 231 seats, while the Liberal Democrats gained 97 seats and the Greens 64.

Labour has lost seats in a smattering of council seats to independents and George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain, apparently over its position on Gaza.