Having triggered a by-election in his Richmond Park constituency after resigning over Theresa May’s decision on Heathrow expansion, Zac Goldsmith is standing as an independent. However, with both the Liberal Democrat Sarah Olney and Labour Christian Wolmar united against a third runway, the issue may lose significance.
Provided pro-Europeans don’t split the vote on December 1, Goldsmith’s support for Brexit and his racially charged 2016 London mayoral campaign may haunt him in his re-election bid. After all, Goldsmith’s constituents voted 72% in favour of remain, according to research by Chris Hanretty from the University of East Anglia.
Brexiter
The son of an anti-EU campaigner, Goldsmith confirmed his pro-Brexit stance in a City AM column in February, writing: “Real power in Brussels rests in institutions that are accountable to no one”. And since “the EU is unwilling to entertain meaningful reform…it makes no sense for us to bind ourselves to a political bloc that is in decline”.
Speaking to the Standard, Goldsmith argued that London would “flourish” whatever the outcome of the referendum. On the Andrew Marr show in January, Goldsmith expressed a willingness to stay in a reformed EU, and said he wasn’t a eurosceptic “headbanger”. On being named the Tory Mayoral candidate in October 2015, he said: “If the EU is not reformed it will collapse and when that happens it will be very ugly for European people everywhere”.
In addition, Goldsmith said that Sadiq Khan – Labour’s muslim candidate – was a greater threat to London than Brexit; one of many statements in a campaign that some called racist.
Divisive mayoral campaign
In a Daily Mail column four days before the election, Goldsmith wrote that Khan had “repeatedly legitimised those with extremist views”. The headline read: “On Thursday, are we really going to hand the world’s greatest city to a Labour party that thinks terrorists are its friends?” with an image – taken during the July 2005 attacks – of an exploded London bus. Although in an interview with LBC, Goldsmith called the image “inappropriate”, he said “I stand by every word” of the article.
In a Standard interview, he accused Khan of “giving platform, oxygen and cover to extremists”, including those who want to “drown every Israeli Jew in the sea”. In addition, the word “radical” was repeatedly used in Goldsmith’s campaign literature.
Goldsmith’s letters to Hindus, Tamils and Sikhs were also viewed by many as stoking racial division. Tamils were told that Khan would tax their family jewellery. British Indians were told that Jeremy Corbyn wanted to ban Indian prime minister Narendra Modi – a Hindu nationalist – from visiting the UK. Londoners took to Twitter to accuse the campaign of racially profiling and stereotyping them.
His sister, Jemima Goldsmith, tweeted, “Zac’s campaign did not reflect who I know him to be”. In his first interview since the Mayoral election, Zac Goldsmith argued that his campaign had been “misrepresented”. Ultimately his campaign proved unpopular with London’s electorate.
When InFacts asked Goldsmith for comment, he said: “There are two simple issues in this by-election. First it is a referendum on whether the constituency wants Heathrow expansion. Second it is about the basic democratic principle of [an] MP keeping to his word and standing by an election pledge”.
It remains to be seen whether the people of Richmond Park will allow him to frame the election in this way.
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Edited by Hugo Dixon
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