Over the weekend Sadiq Khan got a lot of attention for equating Trump’s election to the return of fascism:
“We should be in no doubt, this is a perilous moment. The spectre of a resurgent fascism haunts the West … To ward off the far-right, we must be unflinching in defence of our democracy and values, and in our determination to enhance the welfare and material conditions of our communities.”
Much like the London Mayor’s previous tired guff when it comes to the soon-to-be president. The government slapped Khan down on Sunday for the obviously unhelpful comments…
Now less than 48 hours after Khan’s origial Observer article came out, he is briefing in somewhat of a different tone:
“Sir Sadiq said as somebody ‘who believes in democracy, and voting and elections, we should recognise the fact that Donald Trump is the elected President of the United States’. And he insisted he now ‘wanted to work closely with the American President’. But he added: ‘Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this president is different from the last time he was president.'”
That’s as close to a climbdown on Trump as anyone can get out of Khan. How hard did Labour have to twist his arm to get this out?
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”