Laila Cunningham has been unveiled as Reform’s candidate for the 2028 London mayoralty race. Cunningham, who was elected as a Tory Westminster City councillor in 2022 and defected to Reform last June, has since become Reform’s most prominent female face, frequently handling media appearances and speaking out on crime during last summer’s campaign as a former Crown Prosecution Service lawyer. ‘She was the standout candidate,’ says one senior Reform figure. ‘A massive hit with London branches and members.’
‘Cunningham was the standout candidate,’ says one senior Reform figure
Inevitably, crime was the predominant focus of Cunningham’s initial remarks at Reform’s press conference this morning. She promised that there was ‘A new sheriff in town.’ ‘I will be launching an all out war on crime,’ she vowed.
Cunningham lambasted Sadiq Khan’s record, suggesting the three-time mayor was presiding over a Wild West where ‘knife crime is out of control.’ She framed the next election as ‘Khan v Cunningham’ and promised to spend the next two-and-a-half years drawing up a plan ‘by and for the people who actually live here’. She promised to restore visible policing, reopen police counters and rewrite the Police and Crime plan which she said would refocus the police’s priorities. ‘Don’t mess with a vigilante mum,’ added Farage.
The reason for the announcement so early in the election cycle is to prepare Reform for the forthcoming London borough council contests. The fragmentation which is harming Labour across the country will likely play out in the capital, with potential opportunities for younger insurgent parties. Havering, Hendon and Romford are eyed as fertile territory for Reform: remnants of the so-called ‘doughnut strategy’ on which Boris Johnson built his election success in 2008 and 2012. With 1,800 wards up for grabs, Cunningham will be the face of Reform’s campaign. She is thought by Farage and other aides to appeal to new Reform voters: a young woman, in her early 40s, with seven children – ‘seven reasons’, in her words, why she is invested in the city’s future.
After the success of the ‘Women for Reform’ initiative last summer, Farage hopes that a similar playbook will make deep inroads in a city where his party have previously struggled to win.
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