Sadiq Khan
Mayor of London · 2016–
In one sentence
Turned the capital into a sanctuary jurisdiction and fought enforcement from City Hall.
Khan has run London as a self-styled sanctuary city: city-funded legal support for people with no right to be here, hostility to the 'hostile environment,' and a consistent public line that immigration enforcement is a moral failure rather than a duty. London carries a disproportionate share of asylum hotels, HMOs and illegal working. The Mayor does not control the border. He does control the political weather in the city that is the main magnet, and he has used it to resist the Home Office, not to help it.
London is a welcoming city. We will not be dragged into the gutter of anti-immigrant rhetoric.
What they did
2016–
Sanctuary politics
City Hall programmes for undocumented Londoners, opposition to data-sharing with immigration enforcement, and a running war with Conservative Home Secretaries on hotels and raids.
2024–2026
Hotels and protests
As hotel use became the national flashpoint, Khan's line stayed solidarity-first. He does not run the Home Office; he sets London's.
Sources: Mayor of London statements; London Councils hotel data