Mayor of London Sadiq Khan blames Trump for sharp rise in abuse

Sadiq Khan says he has received at least 233,000 "explicitly racist or racialised social media messages" since being elected mayor of London in 2016.

Addressing Stanford University students in California, Mr Khan partly blamed a 1,892% rise in abuse to Donald Trump's election as US president.

A feud started in 2017 when Mr Trump criticised the mayor over his response to the London Bridge terror attacks.

"He's not my biggest fan," Mr Khan told the audience in Silicon Valley.

Mr Khan was elected mayor of London in May 2016, six months before Mr Trump won the White House.

"During those four years he was president, that led to me having to receive police protection and a lot of racial abuse," Mr Khan said on Tuesday.

"In the last year of him being president, once he was banned from Twitter, I received the least racial abuse of any time over five years.

"On the one hand, social media - Facebook Twitter - great. On the other hand, that's the consequence of lack of control and lack of regulation."

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Racist abuse targeted at Mr Khan rose by 1,892% in 2016, according to the mayor's office, before increasing by a further 94% in 2017.

The abuse declined by 35% in 2018, rose by 59% in 2019 with a decline of by 75% in 2020, and a further 40% fall in 2021, following Mr Trump's permanent ban from Twitter and subsequent departure from office, said Mr Khan's office.

The mayor is travelling across the country as part of his efforts to "bang the drum for London" and encourage investment and tourism.

The California leg of the tour has seen him meeting with technology and business leaders at Google and LinkedIn.

Sadiq Khan met LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman on Tuesday

Asked about Elon Musk's plans to reverse Mr Trump's Twitter ban, he said "everybody should be entitled to be rehabilitated".

"Let's wait and see if Donald Trump has learnt his lesson. If it's the case that Donald Trump is going to use Twitter responsibly, I think that's all well and good.

"If he breaks the rules, there needs to be consequences and we can't afford a situation where people think social media is where people behave irresponsibly, where you see an increase in not just racism, sexism and misogyny but also division.

"I hope Elon Musk, now he's in charge of Twitter, understands that."

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