Interview with Laurence Fox, Candidate for Mayor of London

The more Mr Khan parrots the corporate phrase ‘diversity, inclusion, equality,’ the less diversity, inclusion and equality there is. 

Laurence Fox’s run for mayor was never going to be easy. Let’s face it, being the champion of anti-political-correctness in the city that Fox himself describes as a “cathedral of wokery”, is a guarantee for resentment and scorn. Fox’s anti-woke platform might make him a hero in the eyes of many, but it also renders him the enemy of the largely Left-leaning mainstream media. 

It is worth noting that Fox’s campaign is supported by Jeremy Hosking, who also backed Nigel Farage’s Brexit bid. It took over 25 years for Farage’s message to be heard but much like Fox, once on the scene, the game-changer instantly ruffled the PC crowd’s feathers.

Here, I asked Fox about the wrath of mainstream media, his vision for the city he loves, rebuilding London’s economy, Critical Race Theory, education, why “we need more men in all aspects of society” and why the government keeps bailing Khan out. 

Hannah Gal: Anti-woke MP Ben Bradley told us that MSM, like many politicians, is detached from what really troubles constituents, how can you make sure you remain in tune with Londoners' real concerns?

Laurence Fox: By standing up for Londoners on the issues that really matter to them, not just parroting what the mainstream media wants them to hear. A tiny minority of Londoners agree that issues such as transgender bathrooms, diversity and inclusion departments, and policing people’s opinions at the workplace are the priorities facing our city. Instead, getting people back to work, lifting lockdown, ensuring they can meet their family and friends and enjoy the best the capital has to offer: this is what my mayoral platform is based on.

Such has been the toxic shock of lockdown, life will not magically return to normal. That’s why, unlike the lockdown candidates whose policies are about managing decline, I’m about getting Londoners and their economy moving again by lifting lockdown now. Tubes and buses will be free for the first 6 months of my Mayoralty to help get Londoners back to work and to boost the capital’s economy. I will scrap the Mayor’s Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and underused cycle lanes, I will take the politics out of the police and introduce a tough, New York-style approach. We need them to police our streets, not tweets. I will build 250,000 homes by allowing empty offices to be converted to residential use and putting years of political correctness to one side to reconsider the Green Belt.  

The hard-working ordinary people of London deserve a mayor who understands their needs. 2020 saw massive redundancies for taxi drivers, waiters, builders, retailers, and the creative industry, which we have to overturn by rejuvenating the economy, rather than spending bucketloads on unaffordable handouts. Lifting lockdown is the first step to achieving this.

As mayor, will you work to ensure unconscious race and gender bias training is excluded from schools and state institutions?

Our children should be taught how to think, not what to think. 

Lectures from the ivory tower establishment on race and gender ideology are poisonous and have to be discarded from schools, universities and state institutions. Our city is one of the most multicultural in the world, and the vast majority of ordinary Londoners have no issues with their neighbours, whatever their racial or cultural background. The obsession the mainstream elite have with race and gender is totally disproportionate to the few problems that may exist. Londoners on the street tell me it’s a non-issue for them, and they agree it has gone too far and must be rejected.

As mayor, I will scrap so-called ‘unconscious bias training’ wherever it’s in my capacity to do so.

As mayor, will you help instil values such as constructive discipline, respect, family, hard work, responsibility, competence, excellence and apprenticeship within the education system? Within this context, do you think we would benefit from encouraging more men to go into teaching?

We need more men in all aspects of society. 

One of the tragedies of the last fifty years has been the establishment trying to emasculate men and remove the values that build and defend society, particularly courage, perseverance, hard work, healthy competition and a much-need sense of personal responsibility. A welfare state is virtually unnecessary where good men take responsibility for their families, communities and country – just look at how we turned the tide of the war when all seemed lost. London, and Britain, owe their hard-won freedom to the good men who refused to surrender at Dunkirk. No amount of political correctness or self-pity could have stopped Hitler’s fascist state taking over the country and turning us into a dictatorship.

These traditional values must be taught in the education system, not only in the curriculum but through the good example of teachers and parents. I will employ people who see the need for these values and are prepared to face the consequences of their actions, rather than blaming ‘the system’, parading their victimhood or cancelling other viewpoints to make themselves feel better - hard work, responsibility, service, mutual respect and competence will be rewarded throughout my mayorship.

Has Khan’s narrative put too much effort into ‘causes’ that Londoners simply do not care for? Would funds have been better used for youth apprenticeships, for example, teaching young people practical skills for life? 

Hard work and talent builds society, whereas professional virtue-signalling divides society. 

One of my priorities as mayor is to see hard work and effort rewarded - precious taxpayer money will be spent on causes that drive society forward, training young people in practical skills where there is currently a shortage and will be in the future, such as plumbing, building and software development. 

The more our youth develop themselves in a skill, the more proud they will become in their achievements, and feel less of a need to blame others for failing in life. They will become a potent force to make London a great city once again.

Gender-neutral toilets are not the primary or even secondary concerns of Londoners. Instead of actually creating something for us to be proud of, Mr Khan has resorted to routinely wasting his time and effort pitching unnecessary battles on highly controversial issues that leave more questions than answers. Sadly, he will be remembered as the mayor who left London with more problems than he solved.

I will also take the politics out of the police and bring an end to them adopting LGBT flags and badges, which just divide an already-pressured establishment, and undermine their resolve to work together against crime. The police should be a force, not a service, and police the streets, not tweets. 

Tackling crime is one of my key targets as mayor, and ideological warfare is not just unnecessary, but a threat to their work. Let’s use less money painting police cars in ‘Pride’ month, and more money arresting hardened criminals who threaten our women and children.

Your message will appeal to anyone repulsed by footballers taking the knee or statues being toppled over; but will you be a mayor of all Londoners? 

The more Mr Khan parrots the corporate phrase ‘diversity, inclusion, equality’, the less diversity, inclusion and equality there is. He is creating one of the least diverse, inclusive and equal cities on the planet.

I want true diversity, true inclusivity and true equality for all Londoners. What Mr Khan is offering is a parody of that. True diversity means listening to each others’ viewpoints and respecting each other as persons, not as ideological pawns whose value is connected to how obediently you parrot the mainstream opinion. Diversity means openness to the viewpoints of people we disagree with, which is sadly lacking in Mr Khan’s ‘take the knee’ regime.

True inclusion means including everyone in the policy debate, within the law. Unlike Mr Khan, I will be much more inclusive and tolerant than him, especially on controversial issues such as trans rights, climate change and lockdown, where there is only one view allowed at present.

Suicide is the number one killer of men under the age of 45. Between us waking up today and going to bed at night, 13 men will end their lives. This is a catastrophe. As mayor, will you make time to address this problem? 

As the tragic suicide rate shows, young men are facing serious challenges to life in London. There is a severe lack of jobs, worsened by the lockdown and a lack of affordable training to qualify for those jobs. Often, young men come from broken families and communities and are tempted by the allure of drugs, gangs, or serious forms of addictions.

As mayor, I will work to harness the best qualities young men have at their disposal, such as courage and initiative. If we don’t encourage young men to help build London into a great city, some will sadly use those same qualities for the worse. They are a vital focus of my campaign, and I’ll take a proactive approach in reducing the suicide rate, not only in clearing up the tragedy of suicide but in addressing the deeper problems that lead to it.

Many people feel helpless in the face of destructive political correctness. They dare not speak in light of big tech bullying and are tired of the race card being played left, right and centre. There are also too many women afraid to be labelled as ‘anti-feminists,’ should they utter a positive word about men or express a negative sentiment about radical feminism… What can give people the assurance they need in order to speak up, even if their opinion goes against the grain?

London is one of the great cultural and intellectual capitals of the world. It has a proud heritage of standing up for free thinking and free speech, from the Levellers, John Wilkes and Thomas Paine, to the Chartists, suffragettes and the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Through the ages, London has provided sanctuary for free thinkers fleeing from persecution. But under the Woke-Master-in-Chief, Sadiq Khan, many have been silenced, scared to say what they think and pilloried if they do. 

London’s freedom of speech and thought has been cancelled in the name of political correctness. Unlike the Mayor and other lockdown candidates, my ambition is to unlock London and free Londoners to re-establish our capital as one of the great cities of the Western world.  

I will end Sadiq Khan’s divisive and discriminatory wokery. As Mayor of London, I will found a new Debating Forum, a dedicated centre to promote new ideas and arguments from across the UK and worldwide. One day, we will take the Forum out into the capital for a new ‘Free Speech Day’, where you will find speakers corners across the capital, inviting people to say what they think without fear or favour. There will be no more no-platforming; our schools and universities should help children to learn how to think, not what to think. I will support ‘free speech gangs’ to arm our young people with words, not knives. I will disband the Mayor’s statue commission; instead, erecting new statues to celebrate the lives of great Londoners.

What do you make of the following observation by The Telegraph?

“The worse mayor Sadiq Khan’s record, the higher his support, partly because the Government has repeatedly bailed him out, starting long before Covid with his incompetent management of Crossrail. The reality is that while the Tories will happily take your tax money, they won’t lift a finger to help you. They prefer to help Khan: refusing to criticise the Met Police’s deplorable performance, which the mayor is ultimately responsible for; handing over billions for Transport for London, chaired by the mayor, without seizing genuine control; and promoting Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and anti-car measures that infuriate Tory voters.”

Once upon a time, the Conservatives saw themselves as the guardians of liberty, but they have deserted London to years of wokery and decline. Under Khan, murders are up 41 per cent, knife crime up 26 per cent, London’s jobless rate is twice the level of Scotland, our tubes and buses are practically bust. Moreover, in just 12 short months, Boris has terrified the nation into a state of perpetual lockdown regulation with vaccine passports to go to a football match, mandatory face masks for kids in school and never-ending social distancing. While he has repeatedly promised to return our civil rights, the government has quietly given itself more powers to close them down. After nearly 200 years on the side of social and individual freedom, the Tories have become the party of the state.

History tells us that if your philosophy is about keeping people locked down, then your politics is about managing decline. The Chancellor is burning £1 billion every day to keep us locked up at home, our businesses frozen and us apart from our friends and family. Lockdown has cost London over £55 billion which, given its contribution of 23 per cent to the UK economy, is a disaster for the rest of the country. 

Our once thriving, fun-loving capital city is deserted, tubes running at only 25% capacity, jobless rate twice that of Scotland, its streets awash with crime with murder up 41 per cent and knife crime up 28 per cent.

Rebuilding London is essential to the national economy and that depends on promoting growth, not managing decline. Voters have a clear choice at the local and Mayoral elections on 6th May. You can either vote for one of the lockdown candidates who want the state to continue restricting our lives, or you can vote for me to unlock London, cancel Sadiq Khan’s wokery and free Londoners to re-establish our capital as one of the great cities of the western world. Unlike the Mayor and other lockdown candidates, my ambition is to unlock London and free Londoners. London will be a Covid passport-free city. There will be no mask mandate in London and children will not have to wear masks in school. 

London has a choice. This election is a referendum on the continued lockdown of London. 

You can either vote for one of the lockdown candidates who want to continue restricting and controlling our lives, or you can vote for me, for freedom, to send a message clear and strong that Londoners want to reclaim their city.

Hannah is a London based journalist covering culture and current affairs. She writes about photography, film and TV for outlets in the UK and US, and covers current affairs with particular interest in the Jewish world. She is also an award-winning filmmaker and photographer. Her films were screened in festivals worldwide and parts of her documentary about Holocaust survivor Leon Greenman were screened on the BBC.

You can find more from Hannah here.