'Londoners have chosen unity over division': First Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan blasts rival Zac Goldsmith's 'politics of fear' after winning record vote as top Tory slams 'return of the nasty party' 

Sadiq Khan was officially declared the first Muslim Mayor of London last night after comfortably defeating Tory rival Zac Goldsmith.

The result from City Hall was a glimmer of light for Jeremy Corbyn from an otherwise dire set of election results.

In a clear dig at Mr Goldsmith's campaign, which had been portrayed as 'divisive', Mr Khan said: 'This election was not without controversy and I'm so proud that Londoners have today chosen hope over fear and unity over division.'

Sadiq Khan leaves his home in south London this morning following last night's results of the mayoral election

Sadiq Khan was officially declared the first Muslim Mayor of London last night after comfortably defeating Tory rival Zac Goldsmith

Mr Khan said: 'I hope that we will never be offered such a stark choice again. Fear doesn't make us safer, it only makes us weaker, and the politics of fear is simply not welcome in our city.'

He said he was 'deeply humbled' and was 'so proud' of London and he said his late father, a bus driver, would have been very proud too. 

The bitterly contested battle had seen Mr Goldsmith and David Cameron repeatedly raise Mr Khan's ties to extremists.

But the interventions did not sway voters in the capital – and the Prime Minister is now facing a massive Conservative backlash over the tactics. 

Mr Khan said: 'I grew up on a council estate a few miles from here. Back then I never dreamt someone like me could be elected Mayor of London.

The new mayor said he was 'deeply humbled' and was 'so proud' of London and he said his late father, a bus driver, would have been very proud too

The final tally showed the Labour candidate was 14 per cent ahead of his Tory rival, whose scare tactics about Mr Khan's alleged links to Muslim extremists appeared to have backfired

'I want to say a thank you for making the impossible possible. I have a burning ambition for London. An ambition that will guide me everyday: to give Londoners opportunities not to survive but to thrive, the opportunities to build a better future with a decent and affordable home.

'More jobs with better pay, not just being safe but feeling safe, cleaner air and a healthier city. Londoners to fulfil their potential.

'I've been thinking about my late dad. He was a great dad. I am so proud to say that the city he chose to call home has now chosen one of his children to be mayor.' 

Mr Goldsmith said of the new mayor: 'I wish him well as he sets out to build on the success seen under Boris Johnson.' 

Jeremy Corbyn was among the first to congratulate Mr Khan tonight even before the official results of the eleciton were declared 

Counting stuff input papers into the electronic counting system. The mayoral election was the first big test for a new electronic counting system

Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s former director of strategy, said tonight: 'Zac Goldsmith has brought back the nasty party label to the Conservative Party.'

Labour MP David Lammy predicted that Mr Khan's victory could pave the way for a candidate from an ethnic minority to enter Number 10.

'If we ever get a prime minister of colour it will be because of what Sadiq Khan has achieved,' he said.

Tottenham MP Mr Lammy, who stood against Mr Khan for the Labour mayoral nomination, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme Mr Khan 'is a grafter, he is someone who gets on with people, he is someone who is pragmatic when he needs to be and he certainly has a vision for this city'.

The official declaration was originally due around 6pm but 'discrepancies' in the count pushed the final result back to just after midnight.

Earlier Mr Corbyn welcomed the victory by tweeting: 'Can't wait to work with you to create a London that is fair for all.' 

UKIP leader Nigel Farage claimed another 'big breakthrough' as his party had two candidates, Peter Whittle and David Kurten, elected to the Greater London Assembly.

Steven Norris, a former MP and mayoral candidate, insisted it was 'no use having a dog whistle when everybody can hear it' as he led criticism of Mr Goldsmith's campaign.

Andrew Boff, the Conservative leader on the Greater London assembly, said the strategy had been a mistake and could damage relations with the Muslim community.

In a remarkable broadside on the Tory mayoral candidate, Mr Boff said his party's tactics could damage relations with the Muslim community.

Roger Evans, a deputy to Boris Johnson at City Hall, also weighed in, warning that Mr Goldsmith's campaign would leave a 'negative legacy'. 

Mr Khan and his family were met by a huge group of reporters as he arrived at London's City Hall for the declaration of the crucial mayoral race 

Former Tory chairwoman Sayeeda Warsi said: 'Our appalling dog whistle campaign for London Mayor 2016 lost us the election, our reputation & credibility on issues of race and religion.' 

Even Mr Goldsmith's sister Jemima said: 'Sad that Zac's campaign did not reflect who I know him to be- an eco friendly, independent- minded politician with integrity.'

She added: 'Congratulations to Sadiq Khan - 1st Muslim Mayor of London- a city for all cultures, backgrounds & religions. A great example to young Muslims.'

Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith, pictured on the campaign trail, faced a firestorm of criticism from the Tories after losing heavily 

Steve Hilton, the former senior advisor to Mr Cameron, said Mr Goldsmith had returned the 'nasty party' label to the Tory party.

He told Newsnight: 'The overall impression I got from Zac's campaign was a rather old-fashioned and frankly uninspiring campaign which I was really surprised about.

'Because Zac, who I know pretty well, is actually a really interesting, thoughtful, somewhat anti-establishment character in politics. 

'He's got a very interesting set of views of different kinds on different issues, and it seemed to me that none of that was conveyed in his campaign which to be honest I found really weird.'

Baroness Warsi, a former Conservative Party chairwoman, led criticism of Mr Goldsmith for the way he conducted his mayoral campaign 

The extent to which the negative campaign run by the Tories failed was laid bare as the results rolled in.

Mr Khan was rewarded by strong swings in the vote in his favour across the capital and the result could help Mr Corbyn to shake off the toxic anti-Semitism row which has engulfed Labour for the past week.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio led international congratulations to the new London Mayor, tweeting: 'Sending congratulations to London's new Mayor and fellow affordable housing advocate, @SadiqKhan. Look forward to working together!' 

Bethnal Green-born actor Eddie Marsan sent this tweet to a friend in Calgary, Canada, which already has a Muslim mayor, Naheed Nenshi 

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, offered her 'felicitations' on Twitter, saying she was looking forward to strengthening co-operation between the two capitals on key issues like housing, pollution and culture. 

Former Labour leader Ed Miliband said: 'Congratulations Sadiq Khan. You will be an outstanding Mayor of London.

'Your positive vision and dignity beat a campaign of fear and division.'

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio led international congratulations for the new Mayor of London

Tory Business Secretary Sajid Javid said: '@Sadiqkhan from one son of a Pakistani bus driver to another, congratulations.'

Bethnal Green-born actor Eddie Marsan tweeted to a friend in Calgary: 'Bet our Muslim mayor is better than your Muslim mayor.' 

Outgoing mayor Mr Johnson thanked the capital for his eight years in office as he sent his final messages from the official London Mayor Twitter account.

He tweeted: 'It's time to sign off from City Hall - it's been the most amazing privilege to be your mayor.' 

Sadiq Khan arrived at City Hall with wife Saadiya, right, but had a long wait for confirmation of his victory

Minutes after the polls closed in the London mayoral election last night, Mr Boff criticised Mr Goldsmith's strategy for focussing on Mr Khan's apparent links with radical Muslims, telling the BBC: 'It was effectively saying that people of conservative religious views are not to be trusted and you should not share a platform with them.

'That's outrageous.'

He added Mr Goldsmith had 'done real damage' and had 'blown up bridges' that the Tories had built with London's Muslim communities, adding it was a mistake to 'equate people of conservative religious views with sympathising with terrorism'.

'I mentioned that I thought this was a mistake for future integration in London. If you are a London politician this is just a bizarre thing to do,' he said.

'I do believe it's going to affect Conservatives at the sharp end, especially in those parts of London where there is a high Muslim population.' 

Outgoing mayor Boris Johnson signed off from his official Twitter account today and said it had been the 'most amazing privilege' to fill the role for the past eight years 

Mr Evans told BuzzFeed: 'I'm concerned that the campaign we've run is going to leave a negative legacy which we in London are going to have to clear up long after the the people who ran Zac Goldsmith's campaign have gone on their way.

'I've been the deputy mayor for the last year and it's been my job to go and talk to communities in London,.

'I've always been very pleased with the courtesy with which I was received and the hearing all communities were willing to give to a Conservative politician.

'We're going to have to do quite a lot of work to re-establish trust with a lot of communities in London, that's a shame and an opportunity missed.' 

Voters in the London Borough of Barnet had reported problems at polling stations and said they were being turned away and told to come back later.

In his final hours as Mayor, Boris Johnson officially opened the huge new cycle routes across London - a project Mr Johnson has admitted was his toughest achievement  

And in the Commons earlier this week, Mr Cameron used Prime Minister's Questions to  build on the controversial campaign to link Labour to extremism.

He angrily challenged Mr Corbyn over alleged links to Hamas and Hesbollah.

Mr Corbyn initially tried to dodge the issue, insisting: 'I have made it very clear Labour is an anti-racist party and there is no room for anti-Semitism.'

But under intense pressure he then conceded that any group that committed racist or anti-Semitic acts was 'no friend of mine'.

The attack came after Israeli ambassador Mark Regev delivered a thinly-veiled attack on politicians who 'embrace' Hamas, the armed wing of which is banned in Britain as a terrorist group. 

Voters went to the polls under sunny skies in Haringey, North London - driving turnout to more than 45 per cent 

The bus driver's son who became London's first Muslim mayor: How ex-human rights lawyer Sadiq Khan has been dogged by links to extremists - but claims he's a moderate who loves manicures and wooed his wife with a Filet-O-Fish in McDonald's

London's first Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan is the proud son of a Pakistani-born bus driver who considers himself so liberal he backed gay marriage and even launched his campaign in a pub. 

The Labour MP also put tackling terrorism and 'rooting out its cancer' at the heart of his election manifesto and pledged to put the capital on a 'war-footing from day one'.

Mayor Khan was helped into City Hall by Tory rival Zac Goldsmith's campaign, which was even branded 'racist' by his own party after he claimed Labour 'thinks terrorists are its friends'.  

But his political career has been dogged by incidents where he has ended up sharing the platform with extremists.

The former human rights lawyer has also been forced into a recent humbling apology to Londoners for giving the impression he shared their views.

Upbringing: The son of a bus driver Amanullah (far left) is proud of his life in South London (pictured in his mother's arms) and is now the first Muslim Mayor of London

Protection: The MP considered getting security for his wife Saadiya and children because of death threats received because he backed gay marriage

The politician has apparently made nine appearances alongside Sulaiman Ghani, a radical cleric who said was a supporter of ISIS and believes homosexuality is 'unnatural'.

MailOnline also revealed this year that in 2009 he supported groups promoting Islamic extremism and gave a speech while the 'black flag of jihad' was openly flying in the hands of children.

This week he apologised for calling moderates Muslim groups 'Uncle Toms' on Iranian-backed Press TV, also in 2009, a slur used by black people to suggest that members of their community are subservient to whites. 

Despite this the father-of-two has himself suffered death threats from Islamists who hate him for being too liberal, especially because he voted for same-sex marriage.

Mr Khan admitted a Fatwa on his head made him consider getting bodyguards for his solicitor wife Saadiya, and their two children Anisah and Ammarah, 16 and 14. because he feared their lives were also in danger.

Officers in his Tooting constituency in London have been put on high alert, and will respond 'extra-quick' should an incident be reported at his home. 

Sadiq Khan is the son of a bus driver who grew up in London, and represents the Tooting constituency he was born in.

Photographs of his childhood show his family standing proudly outside their council home and another shows him waving a union flag and wearing a crown on the day of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 1977. 

He is Labour's first mayor since Ken Livingstone, who he used to help advise, but has fought to distance himself Red Ken's politics and also Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.  

Lawyer Mr Khan wooed his fellow-lawyer wife of 22 years Saadiya over a Filet-O-Fish in a Croydon McDonalds and nights at a nearby cinema.

The pair wed married in 1994 and now have two teenage daughters.

Early life: Bus driver Amanullah Khan with his childrens Farhat Khan, 8, Tariq Khan, 4, Sadiq Khan, 2, Zahid Khan, 12, on the Angell Estate taken in 1972

Growing up: Mr Khan, pictured in white shirt and blue jeans wearing a crown on the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, says he has 'spent my whole adult life fighting extremism'

Mr Khan, one of Ed Miliband's closest friends, sees himself as a liberal left-winger and he has even admitted that enjoys facials and manicures.

Wife Saadiya recently booked him into a spa as a romantic surprise and he shops in Banana Republic because 'you can buy clothes for short people like me'.

The handsome 45-year-old says a cab drivers told him recently: 'I thought it was George Clooney for a minute' - another said he looked like Jose Mourinho.

London contains 40 per cent of Britain's Muslims and he has spoken widely about the importance of his faith.

It is their backing that will have helped him to 44 per cent of first preferences, compared  

His family always observe Ramadan, including fasting, and he was the first British minister to make make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

He said: 'I attended mosques and madrassas in Tooting and Balham, adding to the knowledge of Islam taught me by my family. From a young age we learned the importance of the five pillars of Islam; faith, prayer, charity, fasting — and Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, a journey every Muslim must try to make in their lifetime'.

Mr Khan says he has 'spent my whole adult life fighting extremism'.

He added: 'I know that Muslims have a responsibility to speak up, address this problem head on and to show that it will not be tolerated — and I've paid a high price for doing exactly that'. 

He admitted recently that almost every Muslim has met one and said: 'It's affected my personal life, my friendships, and my career. People I knew as a boy have gone on to act on them in terrible ways'. 

But only this week he was branded unfit to be mayor after it emerged that he had described moderate Muslim groups as 'Uncle Toms'.

The claim emerged in a 2009 interview with Iranian-backed Press TV when he was 'minister for community cohesion', in charge of efforts to stamp out extremism.

Mr Khan has already faced claims about his dealings with extremists during the campaign to succeed Boris Johnson as mayor.

He has dismissed Tory attacks as 'smears', and insisted that he was a moderate Muslim.

Distance: Mr Khan kept himself away from Jeremy Corbyn during the campaign and despite having been close to Ken Livingstone called for him to be thrown out of Labour for anti-Semitism

But Mr Khan's former brother-in-law, Makbool Javaid, preached hatred against non-Muslims at a rally in Trafalgar Square – with the 'black flag of jihad' flying behind him. 

And he suspended his Commons-based speechwriter after he laughed about seeing homosexuals being abused in public, and made reference to 'hoes' and 'f***ing f****ts' – on a Twitter feed followed by the Labour mayoral hopeful.

Zac Goldsmith and his wife Alice Rothschild on polling day - the Tory's campaign has been branded racist and outrageous by his own party

Shueb Salar, who has represented Mr Khan at public events, continued to post them after he started working for Mr Khan in the run-up to last year's General Election.

Among the messages Mr Salar posted on Twitter was 'advice to anyone who's looking to murder their girlfriend and get away with it LOL'. The acronym stands for laugh out loud.

Mr Khan arrives at City Hall with a CV including two ministerial jobs under Gordon Brown after he served as junior minister first at the Department for Communities and Local Government and then at the Department for Transport.

He has been an MP for more than a decade, representing the south London constituency of Tooting, and entered politics after a first career as a human rights lawyer - work which drew aggressive attacks from Zac Goldsmith throughout the campaign.

On the eve of the election, Mr Khan returned to the council estate where he grew up and tweeted: 'I'll be the council estate boy who fixes the Tory housing crisis.'  

And explaining what he would offer London and what it had given him, Mr Khan said before the election: 'The Khan story is a London story.

'My grandparents left India to go to Pakistan. My parents left Pakistan to come to London.'

In the interview with The Economist, he continued: 'I will be in the first generation of Khans not to be an immigrant.

'London gave me and my family a chance to fulfil our potential: I went from a council estate to helping running a business to a transport minister attending cabinet.'

The Tories have come under fire - even from their own side - for running a 'racist' campaign against the new London mayor.

Sadiq Khan suspended Shueb Salar (pictured) over a series of tweets in which he made reference to 'hoes', 'f***ing f****ts'

Radical: A youth holds up the 'black flag of global jihad' in the audience during Mr Khan's speech in 2009

Andrew Boff, the leader of the Conservative group on the London Assembly, has claimed the Tory campaign is one reason why Mr Khan was installed in City Hall today.

Communities Secretary Greg Clark insisted today he did not accept that Mr Goldsmith had run a racist campaign.

He told ITV: 'What you've seen over the last few weeks, not just in London but across the country, is very serious concerns about the people that have associated themselves with the Labour Party and the lack of a grip on the part of the Labour Party in dealing with that decisively.'

Mr Khan has vowed to be his own man in City Hall - insisting the most successful mayors have to be free of central party control.

He said: 'Where I agree with the Conservative government, I'll work closely with them to get the best deal possible. Similarly where I disagree with them, I'll put London's interests first.

'The same goes for the Labour Party leadership. In the cases where I agree with it, I'll work with it. I think Jeremy Corbyn is passionate about the housing crisis and reducing it.

'Where I disagree with him I will say so. '

Mr Khan traded on his personal story during the mayoral contest Tweeting hours before the polls opened from the council estate where he grew up 

But his tweet prompted Labour's deputy leader to tease Mr Khan about how often he has told voters about what his dad did for a living 

LONDON'S NEW MAYOR: SADIQ KHAN'S 10-POINT PLAN FOR THE CAPITAL  

Sadiq Khan will arrive at City Hall after a big victory in the London mayoral contest that saw him campaign across the capital 

1. Tackle the housing crisis, building thousands more homes for Londoners each year, setting an ambitious target of 50 per cent of new homes being genuinely affordable, and getting a better deal for renters.
2. Freeze London transport fares for four years and introduce a one-hour bus 'Hopper' ticket, paid for by making TfL more efficient and exploring new revenue-raising opportunities. Londoners won't pay a penny more for their travel in 2020 than they do today.
3. Make London safer, with action to restore neighbourhood policing, tackle gangs and knife crime, a plan to tackle the spread of extremism, and a review of the resourcing of our fire service.
4. Be the most pro-business Mayor yet, working in partnership with industry to deliver on skills, infrastructure, and growth.
5. Restore London's air quality to legal and safe levels, with action to make travel greener and pedestrianise Oxford Street, while protecting the green belt.
6. Set up 'Skills for Londoners' to ensure all Londoners have the opportunity to train in the skills that our economy needs.
7. Tackle low pay, working with employers to make London a Living Wage City.
8. Challenge gender inequality, working to close the gender pay gap and support women to break the glass ceiling while helping to remove the barriers to women's success.
9. Make cycling and walking safer, with more segregated cycle routes, action on dangerous junctions, and safer lorries.
10. Make London a fairer and more tolerant city, open and accessible to all, and one in which all can live and prosper free from prejudice.