Will London fall?

To critics, the “London has Fallen” narrative is a foreign-sponsored information warfare operation.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan suggests this “disinformation blizzard” requires extra legislation and regulation, even as the capital suffers more murders, phone-theft and shoplifting rampages. There is, though, a fly in the psyop ointment: if Russian and Chinese puppeteers successfully brainwashed Londoners into believing the city’s a criminal hellscape, then why the surging support for the Green Party? The Greens are, to law and order, what Keir Starmer is to inspirational speaking. Yet Londoners increasingly appear persuaded by Zack Polanski’s ragtag alliance of leftists, Islamists and omnicausers. Now, Labour London fears a Green Götterdämmerung at May’s local elections. Given the direction of travel, it seems reasonable to ask: how would the Greens prove as stewards of law and order? Polanski himself, after all, is a member of the London Assembly.

It would be easy to construct a hyperbolic “what-if” assessment of a Green-dominated London; media narratives tend to focus on the Green’s more outré policies on drug legalisation, immigration, “sex work”, facial recognition technology and stop and search. In fact, parties of both the left and right face significant obstacles to imposing their will on police forces. Nonetheless, the municipal left has proven itself more than able of influencing chief constables.

For the avoidance of any doubt, this isn’t to say all left-wing politicians are reflexively anti-police. I served as a London police officer before the Mayoralty, and then during Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan’s tenures. Livingstone, the former GLC firebrand, supported robust policing while skilfully juggling his left flank. Johnson, unsurprisingly, subcontracted his policing responsibilities, but did rid London of its wetter than wet police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. Khan, though, has proven a paragon of progressivism. The former human rights lawyer advocates the softly-softly, unicorns-dancing-on-rainbows school of policing largely responsible for the “London has Fallen” meme he so hotly denies. For my money, though? I’d wager a Green mayor would make Sadiq look like Genghis Khan.

To consider a Green approach to big city policing, one might look to New York. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s revolutionary zeal appears conspicuously muted around law and order. Would Hobbesian reality tame the Greens too? In Britain, the relationship between local government and police is complex to the point of opacity. Oversight of forces is shared between soon-to-be abolished Police and Crime Commissioners and the Home Office. Laws are set by Parliament, not local authorities. And, of course, police supposedly enjoy “operational independence.” Nonetheless, local authorities can — and do — influence chief constables: 35% of police funding comes from council taxes, after all. A web of multiagency partnerships binds forces to town halls, delivering safeguarding, social care, mental health, civil emergency response and youth services. These are where ideological ghosts haunt the machine and cover-ups fester. To what degree was the rape gang scandal enabled due to nods and winks between local authorities and police forces? What of the West Midlands Police scandal, where Muslim councillors persuaded the chief constable to ban Israeli fans from Aston Villa? In this context, the Greens strike me as an accident waiting to happen, not least given their policies on narcotics, extremism, “sex work” and police-community relations. 

Yet the Greens have run a local authority, in Brighton — although there the party’s influence over policing is constrained by the (Tory) PCC. But in London? The Mayor is the PCC for all of London’s 32 boroughs. Until, of course, PCCs are abolished, in and of itself a dilemma for Labour. Shabana Mahmood’s new police reforms include a new, and as yet ambiguous, role for local government in police governance. It seems likely they were made assuming Labour’s traditional dominance of big city local government. Any changes, should there be a populist resurgence on the left or right, may speak to panic among the Home Office nomenklatura.

Then there’s the issue of radicalisation and “community cohesion.” The Greens, having courted Muslim communities across the UK, are implacably hostile to initiatives such as Prevent. Their pro-Gaza partisanship also plays to prejudice. Counter-terrorism officers are likely to be wary of dealing with Green authorities, unless of course tasked with chasing incels or the ubiquitous (if elusive) far-right extremists. Not so much, of course, are they interested in the 80% of counter-terrorism suspects identified as Islamists. 

Am I suggesting all Greens are pro-Islamist, or sympathetic to political violence? Not necessarily. Am I suggesting activists have an ideological blind spot, one likely to hamper police operations? I strongly suspect they might. Officers charged with protecting us from politically-motivated crime require open dialogue with local authorities, dialogue unburdened by ideological dogma.

The mood music coming from the Greens does little to offer the impression they would make good faith partners for police forces. Sadly, though, given the rage fuelling voting decisions, such issues are of the second order. And so, slowly, parties like the Greens will surf the waves of disillusionment, indulging their passion for political roleplay. Unless, like Zohran Mamdani in New York, reality tempers their appetite for extremes. Given the evidence thus far, though? I’m not holding my breath.