Laurence Fox to run for London Mayor

Actor-turned-activist Laurence Fox has announced he is standing for London mayor.

The leader of the "anti-woke" Reclaim Party said he would campaign for the lifting of lockdown restrictions immediately instead of waiting until June.

He also claimed he wanted to "speak up for those who are being dominated into silence" as he launched an attack on what he described as "extreme political correctness".

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Fox went on to target the BBC, Black Lives Matter and Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan "and his nation hating cronies".

He told the newspaper: "The UK tax burden is at its highest level for 50 years. We have to get it under control. That's why I am standing for London mayor.

"With almost all older and vulnerable people having got their jab, I want the lockdown lifted straight away.

“Both the main parties are competing in this dreary race to be the last to set the country free. Both Tory and Labour have got this badly wrong. I want London – and indeed the rest of the country – to be allowed to get back to work and play immediately – not by late June.”

Mr Fox claimed that public debate had been "strangled", adding: "Leading experts in epidemiology and evidence-based medicine have been smeared and silenced by a government hell-bent on one ideology, at the expense of all other considerations – such as our children’s education, cancer diagnoses and other lives lost.

"At what cost – in these lives and livelihoods – do lockdowns come: and why should it be heresy to question any aspect of this? Our children will pay for the damage done by this fear-led debate all their lives."

He went on to claim that UK culture had reached a "crisis point" where "even mild patriotism is branded as racism".

"Deliberately or by apathy, our sense of who we are, where we are and what we are is being undermined,” he added.

"Boris Johnson says ‘there’s nothing wrong with being woke’. Keir Starmer takes the knee to a hard-left organisation that seeks to undermine all the things we hold dear, our families, our shared language and heritage. Sadiq Khan and his nation-hating cronies have their jealous eyes on our statues and institutions.

"Where does his desire to strip us of our history end? Surely Queen Victoria, the epitome of empire and white privilege, should be torn from her plinth in front of Buckingham Palace to be swiftly replaced with a monument to Greta Thunberg or Piers Morgan?

"Why are none of our politicians standing to defend us? I am livid at the disrespect being shown to the sacrifices made by previous generations to protect our values, tolerance and freedom. This extreme political correctness must be resisted."

The Daily Telegraph claimed that Mr Fox's campaign for election in May would be funded by a donation from former Tory donor Jeremy Hosking. The mayoral campaign spending limit is set at £420,000.