“Rewarded for Failure”: Sadiq Khan to Be Made a Lord

Moments after saying Britain should rejoin the EU, the London mayor could receive a peerage.

MICHAEL CURZON

Labour’s negative-headline-grabbing London mayor, Sadiq Khan, is set to be made a Lord, likely so that he can be brought in as a member of the government—as if it couldn’t become any less popular!

Financial Times journalist Lucy Fisher said embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer was hoping to show his lower ranks that he “wants to make use of all talent in [the] party,” although this does little to explain the possible promotion of Khan.

Fisher added that the move was intended to “pacify” a “key critic” following Starmer’s recent fallout with another senior Labour figure, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. This is illustrative of the establishment’s ruining of the House of Lords, once one of the nation’s most important political institutions and now stuffed full with chums of the elite and potential critics wooed into submission.

These are replacing hereditary peers, ahead of Starmer’s ultimate abolition of the Lords—apparently to “restore trust in politics.”

Khan’s peerage offer will reportedly be made by the PM after local elections in May, widely expected to be a disaster for Labour. Advance reports come just after the mayor said—and, as such, seemingly endorse his view that—his party should “fight the next general election with a clear manifesto commitment: A vote for Labour means we would rejoin the European Union.”

There has been an expectedly large and negative response to the news on social media. The Conservative Woman Editor Kathy Gyngell jibed, “fail abysmally and you shall be rewarded,” adding: “What an embarrassment.” Tory MP Louie French also said that “April Fools’ Day has come early … just when we thought Keir Starmer couldn’t be any more desperate and out of touch.”

Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.

This article (“Rewarded for Failure”: Sadiq Khan to Be Made a Lord) was created and published by The European Conservative and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Michael Curzon

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Starmer Expected to Hand Sadiq Khan a Peerage

WILL JONES

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to offer Sir Sadiq Khan a peerage after the local elections in an attempt to bring one of his most prominent critics on side. The Telegraph has more.

Sir Sadiq, who was handed a knighthood last year, has been a vocal critic of Sir Keir’s leadership, recently accusing him of taking “liberal, progressive voters” for granted in a shift to the Right.

He also backed Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, after he called for a change in the Prime Minister’s approach last year.

Promoting Sir Sadiq to the Lords would be seen as an attempt to secure his support after the local elections on May 7th, when Sir Keir is facing a moment of maximum danger.

Labour has been forecast to lose as many as 2,000 councillors as disenfranchised voters flock to the Greens and Reform UK, putting the Prime Minister’s political future at risk.

Sources claimed that the peerage would amount to an attempt to mollify one of Sir Keir’s most high-profile critics.

One told the Financial Times that there had been talk of a potential Cabinet role for Sir Sadiq, but a Downing Street official dismissed the claim.

On Friday morning, Josh MacAlister, the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, did not deny that Sir Sadiq could be handed a peerage.

Asked whether the reports in the Financial Times were true, he said: “I have no idea.”

However, he said it was “not a bad idea” to offer Sir Sadiq a spot in the Lords, telling Sky News: “What I would say is that as a minister who’s sat in the House of Commons, when you’ve got members of the House of Lords in local government, and now in mayoral positions, it’s incredibly important for the legislation we’re trying to pass, and making sure that the laws that we make are scrutinised by, challenged by and improved by those who are closest to the ground.

“So the principle of it is certainly not a bad idea. We’ve got lots of great mayors across the country.”

Sir Sadiq, who was a Labour MP before becoming the Mayor of London, has previously been touted as a possible future leader of the party, though he has denied harbouring such ambitions.