Sadiq Aman Khan is a British solicitor and politician who has been in office since 2016 as the current Mayor of London. From 2005 to 2016, he served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting. Khan, who was born and reared in a British-Pakistani family, obtained a law degree from the University of North London. After completing his education, he became even more committed to left-wing activism, which he had always favored. He was a lawyer for a substantial amount of time, specializing in human rights cases, and served as the chairman of Liberty for three years. He entered politics in the early 1990s and served as a Councillor for the London Borough of Wandsworth from 1994 to 2006. In 2004, he left his position as a lawyer at the Christian Khan firm to compete for the Tooting parliamentary seat. In 2008, Gordon Brown appointed him Minister of State for Communities in his Labour administration. Khan was subsequently appointed as the Minister of Transport. Khan’s political views and resume had already made him a prominent figure in British politics when he opted to run for mayor of London in 2016. Khan was ultimately elected mayor of London with 56.8% of the vote, becoming the city’s first mayor of an ethnic minority. Khan actively supported the unsuccessful Britain Stronger in Europe campaign in 2016.
Youth and Early Life
Sadiq Khan was born at St. George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London, on October 8, 1970, as the fifth of Sehrun Khan and Amanullah Khan’s eight children. His mother was a seamstress, while his father was a bus conductor for more than 25 years.
After the partition of India in 1947, his parents were among the hundreds of thousands of Muslim families who migrated to Pakistan from India. They moved to Britain in the 1960s, where all of their children, including Sadiq, were born.
There is one sibling and six brothers in his family. In a working-class Sunni Muslim household residing in a three-bedroom council flat on the Henry Prince Estate in Earlsfield, they grew up together. Sadiq attended Fircroft Primary Institution in the London Borough of Wandsworth and later Ernest Bevin School, a nearby comprehensive institution.
Initially, he desired to become a dentist and studied math and science at the A-level level. However, due to his argumentative nature, a teacher suggested that he study law. This recommendation and the NBC legal drama ‘L.A. Law’, of which Khan was a devotee, inspired him to pursue a career in law.
He enrolled at what is now London Metropolitan University (formerly the University of North London) to pursue law. He graduated in 1991 and passed the Law Society finals, which were conducted at the Guildford College of Law.
Khan began working at a very young age, profoundly influenced by his parents’ rigorous work ethic. He previously delivered newspapers and worked on Saturdays.
He even obtained summertime employment on construction sites. His favorite sports were football, cricket, and boxing, and he and his siblings later took up the sport. During his college years, he supported himself by working on Saturdays at the Sloane Square Peter Jones department store.
The profession of a Solicitor
In 1994, Khan joined the London-based soliciting firm Christian Fisher as a trainee attorney. They managed primarily legal aid cases. The partners at that time were Michael Fisher and Louise Christian. Within just three years, in 1997, Khan was also promoted to partner at the company.
In 2002, Fisher left the firm, and Khan and Christian, both human rights attorneys, renamed it Christian Khan. Two years later, in 2004, he resigned from the company. As a lawyer, the majority of his cases involved employment and discrimination law, inquests, judicial reviews, the police, and criminal matters.
Early political profession
Sadiq Khan became politically active during the early 1990s. In 1994, he had risen to prominence in regional politics. In that year, he was chosen as a Councillor for the London Borough of Wandsworth, a position he would hold until 2006. Upon his retirement from local politics, he was appointed Honorary Alderman of Wandsworth.
In 2003, the Tooting Constituency Labour Party decided that any candidate, including incumbent Member of Parliament Tom Cox, could compete for its parliamentary nomination. Cox chose to resign from his position rather than risk being deselected. Khan was ultimately selected as the Labour Party candidate for the 2005 general election, defeating his five opponents. He ultimately won the election and became the new representative for Tooting.
Early on in his political career, Khan was involved in a few controversies. The Sunday Times reported on February 3, 2008, that Khan met prisoner Babar Ahmad, one of his constituents who would later be convicted of terrorist activities, and that the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorism Branch overheard their conversation because the room was monitored.
Subsequently, an investigation was conducted to determine if the Wilson Doctrine, a convention that prohibits police from monitoring lawmakers, had been violated. The investigation concluded that there was no violation. Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister and leader of the Labour Party after Blair’s resignation in June 2007. Under Brown’s leadership as prime minister, Khan ascended rapidly through the ranks of the House of Representatives.
Khan served as the party whip for Brown, whose primary responsibility was to ensure the passage of Labour-sponsored legislations in the legislature so that they could become law. Premier Brown appointed Khan as his new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on October 3, 2008. In June 2009, roughly eight months later, he was given the State for Transport portfolio.
Khan was purportedly the first minister in British history to use Twitter to announce his promotion. Even though he was not a member of the cabinet, he frequently attended transport-related meetings, effectively making him the first Muslim to serve in the British cabinet.
Khan chose not to accept a pay increase as an MP in 2009 and 2010, stating that he did not believe it was appropriate to do so at a time when many people in his constituency and throughout the United Kingdom were being forced to accept pay freezes.
In 2010, he successfully ran for re-election as Tooting’s representative. In April 2010, it was reported that Khan had falsified expense claims on two separate occasions. Khan responded that they were the result of his inexperience and human error, and he issued an apology for violating the expense policy.
Khan was appointed as the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport after the Labour Party was defeated in the 2010 election. He assisted Ed Miliband in 2010 in ascending to the leadership of the Labour Party and was subsequently appointed Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Justice Secretary.
Despite his party’s ultimate loss in the 2015 general election, Khan was re-elected as an MP for a third term. Although he was one of the 36 Labour MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn as a potential Labour Party leader in 2015, he subsequently disclosed that he did not vote for Corbyn.
Following the 2015 general election, Khan resigned from the Shadow Cabinet and announced his intention to compete for mayor of London. His competitors for the Labour nomination were Diane Abbott, Christian Wolmar, Gareth Thomas, David Lammy, and Tessa Jowell, with Tessa Jowell being his most formidable opponent.
Khan received the support of the leftist, socialist branch of Labour, the unions affiliated with Labour, GMB, and Unite, and the Blairite wing. In addition, he received the nomination of 44 of Labour’s 73 constituent parties in London. Khan gained the nomination in September 2015 with 48,152 votes (58.9%) to Jowell’s 35,572 votes (41.1%).
Khan’s primary opponent in the 2016 mayoral election was Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative candidate. Khan realized early in the campaign that many voters were hesitant to vote for a Muslim mayor, so he decided to address the issue head-on.
He condemned Islamic extremism and spoke out against homophobia and antisemitism. In addition, he distanced himself from Corbyn because of his association with anti-Israel groups, and he feared that Corbyn’s socialist views would alienate London’s corporate elite.
Khan received 56.8% of the vote share in the final round of the election on May 5, 2016, against Goldsmith’s 43.2%. His inauguration ceremony took place on May 7. On 9 May, he duly resigned as the MP for Tooting by assuming the ancient position of Crown Steward and Bailiff of The Three Chiltern Hundreds. It resulted in a June 2016 by-election in Tooting.
Bürgermeister von London
In the weeks preceding the United Kingdom’s membership vote in the European Union, Sadiq Khan was one of the most prominent Remain supporters. Together with Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, he attended a Britain Stronger in Europe campaign event to demonstrate cross-party cooperation on the issue.
Khan stated that all EU citizens were still welcome in London and that he was appreciative of their contributions to the city after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. He worked hard to maintain his reputation as a progressive mayor. During Ramadan in 2016, he attempted to “break down the mystique and suspicion” encircling Islam by reaching out to non-Islamic Londoners at the LGBT Pride festival.
He enacted progressive transportation and housing policies and asserted that air pollution was the “greatest public health emergency in a generation.” Since he became mayor of London, knife crime has reached epidemic proportions. Recognizing this, he has partially accepted responsibility as Police and Crime Commissioner for the city but has placed the majority of the blame on the government’s budget cuts.
Sadiq Khan’s Awards
Despite being a Labour MP, Sadiq Khan received the Newcomer of the Year Award from the right-wing magazine ‘The Spectator’ at the 2005 Parliamentarian of the Year Awards for his staunch opposition to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s proposal to implement 90-day detention without charge for people suspected of terrorism. Khan received the Politician of the Year award at the British Muslim Awards in February 2016, after being nominated for the award for the previous three years.
Sadiq’s Personal Life
In 1994, Sadiq Khan wed fellow attorney Saadiya Ahmed. Together, they have two daughters: Anisah (1999) and Ammarah (2001). Khan, a devout Muslim, has instilled his faith in both of his daughters. During Ramadan, he is known to fast and frequent the Al-Muzzammil Mosque in Tooting. The liberal British media have described him as “a moderate, socially liberal Muslim.”
Khan has thus far published three novels. His first publication, “Fairness Not Favors,” was published by The Fabian Society in 2008. He then published his second volume, titled ‘Punishment and Reform’. He later published ‘Our London’.
Estimated Net Worth
Sadiq Khan is one of the wealthiest politicians and one of the most popular. Sadiq Khan has a net worth of $5 million, per our research, Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider.