Claim: London mayor Sadiq Khan pledges 40,000 houses exclusively for Muslims in the city.
Fact: Sadiq Khan did not pledge a housing plan just for Muslims. The claim misinterprets comments he made in a 2024 pre-election interview on building 40,000 council homes and 6,000 rent-controlled homes.
A claim has been circulating across social media platforms stating that London mayor Sadiq Khan had recently pledged to build 40,000 houses exclusively for Muslims, which has sparked massive confusion and debate online.
A user on TikTok posted a video claiming that Sadiq Khan announced a proposal to build 40,000 new council homes specifically for Muslims, under what was referred to as the “Muslim Housing Plan.” The video was shared with the caption: “Housing proposal for Muslims. How is this inclusive?”
Another user on X (formerly Twitter) shared a video of Sadiq Khan addressing issues in London, with the caption: “🚨 UK 🇬🇧 BRITAIN London Mayor Sadiq Khan with ‘Islam’ microphone: The children of Muslims who are underemployed or in jobs not suited to their great skills will have subsidies, and I will build housing for those of Islamic faith. Diversity is our strength!”
Similar claims have been widely shared on X, Facebook, and TikTok. These claims can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Fact Check / Verification
Newschecker first conducted a keyword search using terms like ‘London Mayor,’ ‘Sadiq Khan,’ and ‘Muslim Housing Plan in London,’ and found that similar claims had been shared on social media the previous year as well. Sadiq Khan is a British politician who has served as the mayor of London since 2016. He won a landmark third consecutive term as mayor of London on May 4 last year, securing 43.8% of the vote.
We next ran a reverse image search of the keyframes and were led to a video uploaded by the “Islam Channel” on YouTube on April 26, 2024, just before the mayoral elections, with the caption: “How is Sadiq Khan’s manifesto going to affect the Muslim community?”
In the video, Khan stated: “Every Londoner who is on low income or not working will get free training to gain the skills for jobs that are created in London…Another big issue faced by Londoners of Islamic faith is housing. We need to build far more homes in our city because, often, people from minority communities want to live near a mosque, near halal food, and near places where other people like them, for a variety of obvious reasons. However, they’re priced out because there’s not enough housing. So we’re going to build at least 40,000 council homes and at least 6,000 rent-controlled homes.” However, he did not mention that these houses would be specifically for Muslims, nor did he refer to the initiative as the “Muslim Housing Plan.”
We also noticed that this housing plan was mentioned in his election manifesto as one of the top 10 pledges. There is no mention of the housing being dedicated to a specific ethnic group, contradicting the viral claim.
Conclusion
The viral claim that London mayor Sadiq Khan has pledged 40,000 houses exclusively for Muslims is false. The claim misinterprets the comments Khan made in a 2024 interview concerning an overall housing plan for the city.
Result: Partly False
Our Sources
News report from BBC, dated May 5, 2024.
YouTube video posted by Islam Channel, dated April 26, 2024.
Sadiq Khan’s election manifesto
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