Overview
- Nigel Farage unveiled Laila Cunningham as Reform’s 2028 London mayoral candidate and figurehead for the party’s city campaign, saying she left a well-paid job to do the role full time.
- CityAM reported a surge of activity that included polling placing Reform second with London voters and a large rally at ExCeL London.
- Cunningham, a Westminster councillor who defected from the Conservatives in 2025, left the Crown Prosecution Service after officials accepted her resignation following politically charged comments.
- She outlined a hardline crime agenda, promising to reset the Met’s priorities toward knife crime, drugs, robbery, shoplifting and rape, and to pursue so-called rape gangs.
- She pledged to scrap the Ulez if elected, while Farage framed May’s London borough elections as Reform’s most significant pre-general-election test as the party seeks to be seen as Labour’s main challenger.