Laila Cunningham is currently a councillor in Westminster and will make tackling crime her priority if elected to run City Hall, reports Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter

Reform UK's London mayoral candidate Laila Cunningham on stage with leader Nigel Farage (credit Facundo Arrizabalaga-MyLondon) — Reform UK’s London mayoral candidate Laila Cunningham on stage with leader Nigel Farage (credit Facundo Arrizabalaga-MyLondon)

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has become the first political party to announce its candidate for London mayor at the 2028 City Hall elections.

Speaking to a room full of journalists in a glitzy venue in London Bridge on Wednesday (7th), Farage confirmed long-held rumours that Westminster councillor Laila Cunningham will stand against Sir Sadiq Khan in two years’ time, assuming Khan himself chooses to run again as the Labour candidate.

Improving Londoners’ safety on the streets will be Cunningham’s main priority, with Reform assembly members having sought to portray the capital city as “lawless” in recent months despite City Hall’s insistence that violent crime is falling and compares favourably to other major capital cities.

Cunningham has previously been branded as a “vigilante mum” after trying to track down muggers who had targeted her children.

“There’ll be a new sheriff in town, and I’ll be declaring all out war on crime,” Cunningham said. “I will set clear high level priorities for the Met [Police] to focus on tackling knife crime, drugs, robberies, shoplifting, and rape. And I will task the Met with targeting, hunting, and prosecuting rape gangs in London. There will be nowhere for them to hide.”

Taking aim at the current mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, she added: “Londoners need to know that the state of law and order in our city is his fault.

“He is the London’s police and crime commissioner. He appoints the Met commissioner. He sets the priorities, he signs off on the budget. He is in charge.”

While the speech was light on policy, Cunningham pledged to restructure the Met Police to “restore visible policing”.

She added: “We have 32,000 officers. I don’t know where the hell they are, why they’re not on our streets.”

One of Khan’s most significant moves since being elected in 2016 include the introduction and expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez), which charges drivers of non-compliant cars who travel into and through the capital.

Many of the mayor’s critics have consistently held this policy, as well as City Hall’s encouragement of active and public transport, as evidence that Khan is penalising London’s motorists.

Cunningham, who has vowed to scrap Ulez entirely, said: “Every part of life in London is getting more expensive, and still he keeps punishing people for driving to work.

“Working people have been fined, trapped and taxed simply, as have people for taking their children to store, for caring for elderly relatives.

“Carers, tradesmen, small business owners have been treated with like the problem, while violent offenders own the streets.”

She said a decision has not been made on whether to get rid of the Congestion Charge Zone, however.

Reform UK only got 3.2% of the vote in 2024 when its mayoral candidate Howard Cox tried his luck at City Hall in 2024. But the party is now flying high in the national polls and is surveying well in some areas of London such as Bexley and Barking and Dagenham.

Cunningham said Reform will provide the alternative to Khan in 2028, as opposed to the Labour-Tory dichotomy that has defined City Hall since its inception.

“Most Londoners have given up on the Tories, they’re not even a part of the conversation,” the candidate said.

“This mayoral election will be a binary choice. Khan vs Cunningham.”

Cunningham also claimed Khan is aware of her after she publicly confronted him over knife crime last year. “He tried to ignore me once, but my message to him is that he can’t ignore me now,” she added.

“The choice of Khan vs Cunningham is a choice that you will make, that will decide the future of London, the future of the best city in the world.”

Farage himself said that a better candidate could have beaten Khan in 2021 and 2024, but blamed the Tories for not providing support to candidates Shaun Bailey and Susan Hall respectively.

Khan has often been caught in tense negotiations with transport staff, who have carried out around 140 days of industrial action – and subsequent misery for Londoners trying to commute around the city – during his decade in City Hall.

“I’m sick and tired of London being run by TfL unions,” Cunningham said. “They take us for granted, and that’s because it’s a Labour-run city and Labour are in the pockets of the unions.

“I would love to automate the tube, because every time there’s a strike in London, that’s hundreds of millions of pounds [lost], and you can’t even drive in because you’ve got Ulez and you’ve got Congestion Charge.”

There are currently no plans to automate the tube due to the high cost of modernising every line and rebuilding entire platforms to accommodate the full arrival of driverless trains.

In a response to Cunningham’s criticisms, a source close to the mayor said: “Sadiq is getting on with the job of delivering a fairer, safer, greener city for every Londoner. He has delivered over 100 million free school meals for state primary school children, helping families with the cost of living.

“Homicides are at a record low, a record number of council homes have been built, and his policies have cut harmful air pollution in London by 27%.

“In 2028, Londoners face a clear choice: leadership with Labour that believes in London and delivers, or a Reform candidate fronting a party that talks the city down, opposes our values and cannot even get the basics right.”

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