Sir Sadiq Khan has hit back at Donald Trump, telling diplomats to push back on “propaganda” coming from the US president.
Trump has lashed out several times at Khan, calling him a "terrible mayor” and a “nasty person”. The American leader has also said that crime in London is “through the roof” and that the city wants to go to “sharia law”, an unfounded claim believed to be because of the London mayor’s Muslim faith.
On Tuesday, after a meeting with British diplomats, high commissioners, and ambassadors, the mayor said London had its problems but was safer than most US cities.
"A lot of this misinformation, disinformation and lies comes from the United States of America," Khan said following the meeting, according to Reuters. "It's really important to counter the propaganda coming from President Trump."
Crime data, to which Sir Sadiq referred, shows that London’s murder rate fell to its lowest in over a decade last year despite a rise in population by around 1 million people since 2010.
London’s murder rate, according to Metropolitan Police figures, is around 1.1 per 100,000 residents.
By comparison, the homicide rate is 2.8 per 100,000 people in New York, and 12.4 per 100,000 in Philadelphia.
Sir Sadiq, who has criticised Trump before, said: "One of the things that we've got to do better is to rebut these lies that exist across the globe.”
He said that social media posts that make false claims about London could harm the city, as it may deter people visiting, studying, investing in or choosing to live there.
In response, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Standard that “left-wing policies of unfettered migration and destructive globalism have made once-great cities like London unrecognisable”.
She said that such policies have allowed “criminals to run wild and antisemitism to thrive”.
She added: “President Trump saved the United States from such destruction when he was elected, and he is rightfully warning European leaders that western civilisation will continue to erode if they don’t quickly reverse course.”
Violent crime has shown a general downward trend in the capital, but Sir Sadiq acknowledged in January that some London residents may feel the city is “lawless” due to shoplifting and phone thefts.
Phone theft is up 25% over five years, while shoplifting has gone up 54% since 2023.
"I fully accept that perception of crime,” Sir Sadiq told the BBC. “We are going to address that by tackling crime.”
Trump and Sir Sadiq have exchanged comments about each other since 2015, when Trump was a presidential candidate before his first term. Infamously, Trump had suggested that all Muslims should be banned from travelling to the US.
Ahead of Trump’s state visit to the UK last year, the president said Sir Sadiq was “among the worst mayors in the world” and had personally made sure the London mayor had not been invited to a banquet at Windsor. The Guardian reported that sources close to the mayor said this was false.
In early March, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood criticised “misinformation” about claims of sharia law relating to London.
“The US president will say some things that we agree with and others that we disagree with,” Ms Mahmood said
She added: “And let me just say on Sadiq, I think he’s doing an excellent job as mayor of London and there is a lot of misinformation that is often put out about what’s happening in London, whether that’s on crime rates or whether that’s on things like sharia law, for example, which are just misinformation. That’s plain wrong.”
