Just days after the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, apparently by a left-wing extremist, London Mayor Sadiq Khan fired a broadside at President Donald Trump as he arrived in the UK, accusing him of having “done the most” to fan the flames of division.
While Londoners may debate whether Sadiq Khan has ever been a very effective mayor, no one can doubt that during the first Presidency of Donald Trump, he put his heart and soul into beefing with America. That old headline-grabbing animosity has resurfaced again, with Mayor Khan taking to the UK’s establishment-left newspaper, The Guardian, to air his grievances and call on the British government to stop being so accommodating to the President.
Published as Air Force One was on approach to land at a London airport, the op-ed accused President Trump of deliberately using “xenophobia, racism and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic”. In a world where President Trump has been the target of multiple assassination attempts and a key ally was gunned down in a political assassination just last week, Mayor Khan charged the President and those close to him of actually being the ones primarily responsible for fanning “the flames” of division.
Calling President Trump “far-right”, Khan said the deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., to get a handle on runaway crime levels and deporting people is not just “inconsistent with Western values – they’re straight out of the autocrat’s playbook.”
It is evident that Khan, like his Labour Party colleague, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, is extremely nettled by accusations from the United States that the quality of life in London is deteriorating as the high-trust society dissolves, crime increases, and free speech in the United Kingdom is under threat. Indeed, Khan aimed both these claims and, in an assertion that echoes some of those old Soviet jokes said to have been so loved by former President Ronald Reagan, said the fact that some Britons would be able to go out and protest against Trump this week proves freedom of speech is safe.
One of Reagan’s favourite Soviet jokes went like this:
The story was an American and a Russian arguing about their two countries and
the American said “look in my country I can walk into the Oval Office, I can pound the President’s desk and say Mr President, I don’t like the way you’re running our country.And the Russian said, “I can do that”. The American said you can? He says, “Yes, I can go into the Kremlin to the General Secretary’s office, pound his desk and say Mr General Secretary, I don’t like the way President Reagan is running his country.”
As it happens, four people were arrested on Tuesday night for protesting against President Trump, not because of any violence but on the charge of “suspicion of malicious communications”.
London’s mayor was a realist on some matters, however, acknowledging in his article that “revanchist Russia” means the UK can’t afford to upset the U.S. President too much and has to be pragmatic instead. Khan called for Starmer to hector the United States on his pet projects, saying Britain needs to tell Trump why he’s wrong on Ukraine, Israel, and tariffs. He said the UK government must be:
…a critical friend and speaking truth to power – and being clear that we reject the politics of fear and division. Showing President Trump why he must back Ukraine, not Putin.
Making the case for taking the climate emergency seriously. Urging the president to stop the tariff wars that are tearing global trade apart. And putting pressure on him to do much more to end Israel’s horrific onslaught on Gaza, as only he has the power to bring Israel’s brazen and repeated violations of international law to an end.
These latest remarks follow years of others like them by Mayor Khan. As reported in January of this year, hours before President Trump’s inauguration, Khan warned of the “spectre of a resurgent fascism”, comparing the West now to the “1920s and 1930s”. In August 2024, Khan also spoke ahead of the U.S. Presidential elections, expressing he felt concern for his own personal safety is Trump were to be re-elected again.
President Trump himself has so far refrained from sparring with Khan this time around, as he frequently did during his last presidency. In 2019 he roasted Khan for being, he said, “dumb and incompetent” and a “stone cold loser”.
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