Murad Qureshi sees parallels in the confrontations to come with President Trump with the clashes between the radial Greater London Council of the 1980s and the Thatcher Government.

On Tuesday night, Zohran Mamdani won the Mayoralty in New York to become that city’s 111th Mayor after some formidable opposition, including billionaire-funded attacks on social media and much of the mainstream media of the US as well. It was a truly historic victory, but l can’t help but fear some trepidation for him.

This was an incredible result. Mamdani came from nowhere in the Democratic primaries to become their candidate and then eventually beat his nearest rival, the Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo the Democratic establishment candidate. He also gives my relatives in New York some relief from all the stresses of living the American dream in recent times, though many of them have been there since the mid-1970s.

Now, being the sister city of Greater London, there are some useful comparisons to be made in the analysis of the vote. For example, as in London, you need over 1 million votes to win the Mayoralty of New York. That’s not surprising as we have similar populations of just under 9 million. Our population is distributed more widely whereas in New York it is concentrated in a smaller area with a much higher population density. Mamdani managed to get just over a million votes, with 1,036,051 making up 50.4 per cent of the vote. While we have a crazy 32 boroughs, New York City has just five boroughs and he did particularly well in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn.

But there is a lesson from history from our shores that will need to be digested. When Ken Livingstone was elected leader of Greater London Council (GLC) in 1981 with a platform to cut fares; invest in housing and public services, increase wages and finish the Thames Barrier to protect London from floods, it was not dissimilar to Mandani’s electoral mandate. Yet Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of the day, found this too much to tolerate. A banner outside County Hall, the headquarters of the GLC, displaying  the huge numbers of unemployed people in the country, seen across the river at the Palace of Westminster, was clearly too much for her. She duly abolished the GLC and sold County Hall which had stood as the home of the London government since 1888.

Now if Trump goes for Mamdani, l can’t help but think he’ll do something similar and trash the institution of the Mayor of New York office along with Gracie Mansion and New York City Hall. Since becoming President again, he has already stopped New York’s very own congestion charging regime in Lower Manhattan – even though its congestion pricing had cut pollution and traffic noticeably in its first six months.

The Trump administration said the federal government has jurisdiction over highways leading into the city and revoked its approval of the controversial program over concerns that it unfairly burdens working-class residents in the region. Clearly Trump keeps an eye on matters in his old home city, where his father made the family fortune. This comes on top of the abuse Trump will give Mamdani anyway.

So before his inauguration in January to take up his office, Mamdani will have plenty to think about. We of course should join any campaign against any such attempt to thwart Mamdani’s mandate, drawing on our own history and experience of what happened to London’s government from the late 1980s on.

Murad Qureshi was a member of the London Assembly from 2004 to 2016 and from 2020 to 2021. http://www.muradqureshi.com/ @MuradQureshiLDN

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