Reform UK London Assembly Member Alex Wilson has branded Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan’s rejection of a proposed knife crime taskforce as “staggering”, claiming the refusal was based purely on “party politics”.
Wilson expressed shock at Khan’s dismissal of the proposal during Mayor’s Question Time at City Hall.
“It’s staggering that he won’t work with us. Not because he didn’t necessarily agree with the idea, but simply because of where it was coming from from Reform UK,” Wilson told GB News.
The Assembly member highlighted that London has already seen nine major stabbing incidents since the start of the year.
Alex Wilson hit out at the London Mayor for rejecting Reform UK’s proposal on tackling knife crime
GB News / PA
“That’s one every other day. We want to do something about that, and we’ve come up with a funded plan,” Wilson said.
Reform UK’s proposal calls for the recruitment of approximately 1,000 new police officers to form a specialist knife crime taskforce in London.
During Mayor’s Question Time, Khan’s response to the proposal was unequivocal: “As a rule of thumb, I never encourage anyone to work with Reform.”
Wilson condemned the mayor’s stance, telling GB News: “Sadiq’s arrogant dismissal of our suggestion shows that tackling London’s knife crime emergency is clearly not a priority of his.”
Khan shut down Wilson’s proposal and claimed he would ‘never encourage anyone to work with Reform’
London Assembly
The plan would be funded by reducing Mayor Khan’s staffing budget to 2016 levels, when Boris Johnson was mayor.
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“I don’t remember anyone saying that London was under governance, that he didn’t have enough staff, enough press officers, that kind of thing. So we can go back to those levels,” Wilson explained.
The Assembly member argued the additional officers would enable “more stop and search, more general police presence and weapon sweeps to try and get these knives off our streets. Business as usual isn’t working,” Wilson added.
The Reform UK Assembly member suggested the mayor’s refusal reflects wider political concerns: “I think it shows that the mainstream parties are scared of us.”
Wilson pointed to Reform UK’s growing influence, noting they are “now effectively neck and neck with both the other main parties.”
Wilson told GB News that the mainstream parties are ‘scared’ of Reform UK
GB News
Despite Khan’s rejection, Wilson pledged to continue pursuing action on knife crime during the mayor’s remaining term.
“I’m going to be speaking to the leaders of the other groups to see if anyone will second this amendment, or perhaps put something similar on their own lines that maybe I can support,” he said.
“We can’t allow that to keep going on. Something needs to change,” Wilson added, vowing to maintain pressure on the mayor.
“I’ll keep asking the questions, I’ll keep working hard. I’ll keep tabling those things,” he said.
