Laila Cunningham has accused Sir Sadiq Khan of “gaslighting” Britons as she lambasted his “audacity” to declare London “safe”.

Speaking to GB News, the Reform UK Mayoral candidate hit out at the current Mayor, stressing that although homicide rates are down, most other statistics are up in the capital.

Criticising Ms Cunningham, Sir Sadiq said of the Reform member: “The party’s new candidate for Mayor of London claimed that people pitied Londoners for living in a city that was ‘no longer safe’.

“This latest startling statistic shows that those who talk down the capital at every opportunity couldn’t be more wrong: in London, the evidence is clear, we’re winning the battle against violent crime.”

Hitting back at the Mayor, Ms Cunningham told GB News: “Homicide has always been low in London. Luckily, it is the narrowest and lowest slice of the pie that we’ve ever had. But you don’t measure safety in terms of who dies, you measure safety in other crimes.

“Rape is up, mugging is up, robbery is up, shoplifting is up, theft from a person is up, knife crime is up, drugs are up. And that is the reason why Sadiq Khan and Sir Mark Rowley have only mentioned homicides.

“They didn’t mention any other stuff because there is no other stat that paints a rosy picture, like they like us to have.”

She added: “And the fact that they compared us to Chicago, the fact that we are being compared in terms of crime rates to Chicago means we’ve lost the argument.

“15 years ago, we would never dream of comparing our crime rate to Chicago. And yes, homicide might be less than Chicago and New York, but they have guns, so an attack is a lot more lethal.

“But actually, in terms of knife crime, we are higher than New York. Knife crime is up by over 60 per cent since his period, and a rape is reported every single hour in the capital. And you know how many end up in a charge? Six per cent. That means 94 per cent of victims don’t even get a look in by the end.

“He has the audacity to look at look women and girls in the eye and say that London is the safest it’s been? It’s offensive.”

Criticising Sir Sadiq’s major cuts to policing in the capital, Ms Cunningham said: “How can it be safer when we have effectively no visible policing? Speak to any Londoner, there is no police.

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“We all know that a policeman is a deterrent. We only have two public counters that are open 24/7 in a city of nine million. He has halved stop and search, all data shows that when you remove stop and search, knife crime does go up, because it prevents taking knives off the person before they commit that crime.

“If anything, you have to have a cause and correlation. With no police, obviously there’s a power vacuum on our streets and that power vacuum has been filled with criminals.”

Ms Cunningham told GB News: “And he even removed police from the Royal Parks in November. My safer neighbourhood team had seven, now it has one.

“And actually, for him to look people in the eye and say that London is safe, he is gaslighting people. Sir Mark Rowley and Sir Sadiq Khan, all they’re doing is policing public perception, we really want them to police the streets.”

Defending the latest figures, Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley declared “London is safe” as he promised to crack down on “dangerous men” in the capital.

He told GB News: “We’re targeting the most dangerous men, repeat offenders in domestic violence or stalking cases and throwing everything we have at protecting women and children.

“Nobody should be overly concerned about walking the streets of London. London is a safe city.

“It is because the brilliant men and women of the Met are bearing down and targeting the most dangerous. This is such good news that this is the lowest per capita homicide rate London has ever seen, it’s fantastic news.”