Reform Launches Campaign to Sack Sadiq Khan and Stop “Rising Crime and More Taxes”
Reform UK has launched an aggressive campaign aimed at removing Sadiq Khan from City Hall, accusing the London Mayor of presiding over rising crime, higher taxes and a decade of disappointing leadership.
The campaign marks a significant escalation in the political battle for London, with Reform attempting to turn growing frustration over crime, taxation and the cost of living into a direct challenge to Labour’s long-standing dominance of the capital.
Khan has already won three mayoral elections and remains one of the most recognisable Labour politicians in Britain. But the political landscape around him is changing rapidly. Reform UK has gained ground nationally and locally, while the Conservatives are also attempting to rebuild their position in London.
Reform’s London mayoral candidate, Laila Cunningham, has positioned the next election as a choice between continuing with Khan’s record and taking the capital in a completely different direction.
Her message is deliberately simple: Londoners have paid enough, waited long enough and deserve better.
The campaign focuses heavily on crime.
Reform argues that Londoners should not have to accept what it describes as a deterioration in public safety. Knife crime, phone theft, antisocial behaviour and violence have become highly emotional political issues, particularly because they affect people’s everyday experiences of the city.
The party has repeatedly accused Khan of failing to do enough to make Londoners feel safe.
Khan strongly disputes that picture.
City Hall points to investment in policing and argues that a number of serious crimes have fallen during his time as mayor. The mayor has also repeatedly stressed that tackling crime requires more than simply increasing arrests, arguing that prevention, youth services and action on the causes of violence are equally important.
That disagreement is likely to become one of the central arguments of the next mayoral election.
For Reform, however, statistics are only part of the story.
The party understands that people’s perceptions of safety can be just as politically important as official crime figures.
A Londoner who has had a phone stolen on a crowded street, witnessed antisocial behaviour outside a station or feels uncomfortable walking home at night may not be persuaded by a government statistic showing that a particular category of crime has declined.
This is why Reform’s language is focused on everyday experience.
The party wants voters to ask themselves a basic question: do you feel safer in London than you did ten years ago?
If the answer is no, Reform believes it has a powerful electoral argument.
Taxation is another major part of the campaign.
Khan has increased council tax during his time in office, including a rise designed to help fund policing and other public services. City Hall has defended such increases as necessary to maintain services and invest in public safety.
In January, the Mayor proposed an increase equivalent to around £20 a year for an average Band D household, with the additional money intended to support policing and measures against offences such as phone theft.
From Khan’s perspective, the choice is straightforward.
If London wants more police officers and stronger public services, those services have to be funded.
From Reform’s perspective, the argument is very different.
The party says Londoners are already under enormous financial pressure and should not be expected to continually pay more for services that they believe are failing to improve sufficiently.
This creates a classic political conflict between taxation and public services.
Every mayor faces it.
Spend more and the mayor risks accusations of waste and excessive taxation. Spend less and the mayor risks accusations of allowing public services to decline.
Reform is betting that the public mood has moved decisively towards the first criticism.
The party also wants to exploit dissatisfaction with the wider political establishment.
Khan has been Mayor of London since 2016. A decade in office provides an enormous record for opponents to attack.
For supporters, ten years demonstrate experience, resilience and the ability to deliver long-term projects.
For opponents, ten years create responsibility for everything that has gone wrong.
Reform is clearly choosing the second interpretation.
Its campaign seeks to portray Khan as a politician who has become disconnected from ordinary Londoners after spending too long in power.
The party also argues that London needs a mayor focused primarily on practical problems rather than national and international political disputes.
This is an important line of attack because Khan has frequently intervened in national political debates. He has spoken strongly about Brexit, relations with the United States, immigration and wider questions about Britain’s future.
Supporters see that as evidence of a mayor willing to defend London’s interests on the international stage.
Critics see it as evidence that he has become more interested in politics beyond City Hall.
Reform will attempt to turn that criticism into a simple electoral message: London needs a mayor who concentrates on London.
The challenge for Reform, however, is credibility.
Winning attention is relatively easy. Winning City Hall is much harder.
London remains a politically unusual city. Its electorate is younger, more ethnically diverse and generally more socially liberal than many other parts of England. Reform’s national message does not automatically translate into a winning strategy in the capital.
The party therefore has to broaden its appeal beyond voters who are already strongly opposed to Labour.
Crime and taxation may provide that opportunity.
Almost everyone wants safer streets. Almost everyone dislikes paying more tax. These issues can cross traditional political boundaries.
A Reform campaign that concentrates exclusively on immigration or cultural issues could struggle to win over moderate Londoners.
A campaign focused on safer streets, cheaper living, better transport and stronger economic growth could potentially reach a much wider audience.
That is why the attack on Khan matters.
Reform is not simply trying to criticise the current Mayor. It is trying to redefine the election around competence.
The question it wants Londoners to ask is not whether they support Reform’s entire national political programme.
It is whether they believe Khan has done a good enough job.
That could be a much more effective question.
Khan, meanwhile, has several advantages.
He is a well-known political figure with a substantial existing electoral base. He has survived multiple elections and has developed an extensive political network throughout the capital.
He can also point to policies that have become popular among parts of the electorate.
His free school meals programme, transport initiatives, investment in policing and efforts to promote London internationally all provide examples that supporters can use to argue that his administration has delivered tangible results.
The mayor can also argue that many of the problems Reform attributes to City Hall are influenced by national government policy, the economy and decisions outside the Mayor’s direct control.
That argument is particularly relevant to taxation.
London’s mayor does not control the entire British tax system. City Hall has limited powers compared with the central government.
Similarly, the Mayor does not personally control every police decision or determine every factor that contributes to crime.
But political accountability rarely works according to such neat boundaries.
Voters generally judge leaders on the overall experience of living in a city.
If transport is expensive, streets feel unsafe and household bills are rising, people may blame the politician they see most frequently, regardless of which level of government is formally responsible.
That is exactly the opportunity Reform is trying to exploit.
The timing is also important.
Khan has not yet definitively settled whether he will seek another term in 2028. If he chooses to stand again, he will have to defend a decade-long record.
If he steps aside, Labour will face a different challenge: finding a candidate capable of inheriting his support without inheriting all of the controversies surrounding his administration.
Reform’s campaign is therefore being launched well before the election for a reason.
It wants to establish the political narrative before its opponents have fully organised.
The party is saying that the next election should be about removing Khan.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, are also preparing their own challenge. James Cleverly has recently announced his intention to seek the Conservative nomination, presenting himself as a candidate capable of rebuilding the party’s support in London.
That creates a potentially fascinating three-way contest.
Labour will seek to defend its traditional coalition.
The Conservatives will attempt to recover voters lost during years of political decline.
Reform will try to convert national momentum into a breakthrough in the capital.
For Khan, the danger is that opposition parties do not need to agree with one another to cause him problems.
They only need to persuade different groups of dissatisfied voters to abandon Labour.
A voter who moves from Labour to Reform and another who moves from Labour to the Conservatives can have the same effect on the final result.
That makes the next election much less predictable than Khan’s comfortable victory in 2024 might suggest.
Reform’s campaign will therefore be watched closely.
Its central message is deliberately blunt: London cannot afford another term of what it describes as higher taxes, rising crime and poor leadership.
Khan’s response will be equally important.
He will need to demonstrate that London is safer, better governed and economically stronger than his opponents claim.
He will also have to persuade voters that spending more on policing and public services is not simply an excuse for higher taxation but an investment in the city’s future.
Ultimately, the battle will come down to trust.
Reform is asking Londoners to trust it with a city of almost nine million people.
Khan is asking them to trust a mayor who has already governed the capital for a decade.
The choice will not simply be between two politicians.
It will be between two visions of London.
One sees a capital weighed down by crime, regulation and taxation, in need of a dramatic political reset.
The other sees a global city facing serious challenges but benefiting from sustained investment, stronger policing and policies designed to make life more affordable and inclusive.
The coming campaign will determine which version of London resonates most strongly with voters.
For Reform, removing Sadiq Khan is no longer just an ambition.
It is becoming the central test of whether the party can transform its growing national popularity into real power in Britain’s capital.
And for Khan, the message could hardly be clearer.
After ten years at City Hall, his opponents are no longer simply asking whether he can win again.
They are asking whether London is ready to move on.
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