Who will be new London mayor?

All eyes are on Sadiq Khan and Susan Hall as results are just a few hours away to decide the new London mayor.

The results are expected on Saturday afternoon or evening – or possibly even Sunday. The polling stations were closed at 10pm on Thursday.

Khan is looking for the third term in the office while Hall is looking to deliver a shock victory and seize City Hall for the Tories for the first time in more than a decade.

As many as 2,495,621 votes had been cast in the 2024 mayoral election with a turnout of 40.5 per cent, according to UK media. About 6,164,119 people were registered to vote.

The votes counting is underway in 14 London Assembly constituencies and the results will be announced after the completion of counting in each constituency, with the first declaration expected on Saturday afternoon.

The mayoral votes for that constituency will be announced at the same time – effectively giving a “rolling” indication of each candidate’s total votes captured.

There was an additional early clue on Friday night with the Londonwide turnout figure of 40.5 per cent – down on 42 per cent in 2021.

Khan said that low turnout would favour Hall.

The “official” declaration time for the 2024 mayoral winner is 1.30pm on Saturday but many expect the announcement to come later than that.

However, Neil Garratt, the Tory group leader on the London Assembly, is optimistic the votes will be counted quickly.

Labour will also be waiting anxiously to see how Khan performs in Ealing and Hillingdon, in Brent and Harrow and in South West, which covers the boroughs of Richmond, Kingston and Hounslow.

To secure overall victory, he has to repeat his achievement in 2021 in massively outpolling his Tory rival in Labour heartlands in east London and south London.