Keir Starmer is said to be considering offering Sadiq Khan the job of London Mayor in a bid to ease tensions within the Labor Party and strengthen his position.According to sources reported by the Financial Times, the British Prime Minister may grant Al-Sadiq a seat in the House of Lords after the next local elections in May.
The move is seen as an attempt to manage internal divisions as Labor faces the prospect of difficult election results that could weaken Starmer’s leadership.Reports also suggest that Starmer is considering offering Sadiq a ministerial position to take up a position in Downing Street. A peerage of the Mayor of London, just a year after he received a knighthood, could help the Prime Minister “cement his position of patronage” as talk grows of a potential leadership challenge, one source said.
However, Downing Street sources dismissed the claims as “speculation”.The reported move comes after a series of public spats between the two senior Labor figures. Sadiq recently broke with the party leadership by calling for the UK to return to the European Union.Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Sadiq said he was “absolutely clear about what should happen, which is that we should join the European Union.”
He added: “We, as a Labor party, must go into the next general election with a clear commitment in a formal statement. A vote for the Labor Party means that we will rejoin the European Union. I believe this is inevitable.”His comments put him at odds with Starmer, who has repeatedly ruled out reversing Britain’s exit from the European Union.Sadiq also criticized Labour’s political strategy following the party’s poor performance in the Gorton and Denton by-elections. “A political strategy that relies on taking liberal and progressive voters for granted is clearly flawed,” he wrote in The Guardian.“The threat facing Labor is now existential in parts of our country,” he warned, warning that without change, Labor risks losing its key strongholds.
