Just why do the Conservatives so dislike London? The former deputy chair of the Tory party Lee Anderson recently described the capital’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, as controlled by “Islamists” – a sentiment others in his party rather belatedly accept as “wrong”, even if they won’t say why. Paul Scully, a former minister for London, chipped in with his belief that parts of the city, and of Birmingham, are now “no-go areas”. The previous prime minister Liz Truss lambasted an “anti-growth coalition” incessantly cabbing from their “north London townhouses to the BBC studios”. Rishi Sunak marked his first ever prime minister’s questions by attacking Labour’s Keir Starmer as a leader who “rarely leaves north London”.
Put these statements together and it appears that, in the collective mind of the post-Brexit Tory party, London has become synonymous with all that ails modern Britain. It is either bursting with woke liberal darlings – Guardian-reading tofu eaters, to coin a phrase – backslapping each other over their latest panel show, or it is chockful of mullahs who detest British liberalism and want the country under sharia law.
Both these stories are confections, as their authors should know. Ms Truss lives in Greenwich, which boasts some fine townhouses yet is slap-bang in the middle of a city with the highest rates of poverty in the country. As an MP, Mr Anderson has been working in London for nearly five years and will have passed Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral and Methodist Central Hall many times. If he bothered to look up the latest census, he’d see that 40% of Londoners describe themselves as Christians, which is almost equal to his own constituency of Ashfield. Elements of the picture that the Tories describe can easily be found in a region of some 9 million souls – but so much of it is ill-founded in fact.
Part of this ignorance is electoral. The city of Margaret Thatcher, Shirley Porter and Boris Johnson now has barely any blue left. The latest polls indicate that Mr Khan will trounce all-comers at the May election. Rather than woo Londoners, the Tories are trying to dismiss them. Perhaps this plays well with the party rank and file, with one poll suggesting half of Conservative members consider Islam a threat to the “British way of life”. But it is not in line with what the wider electorate believes, or holds to be important.
The other part is rooted in racism, which is what Mr Anderson’s comments were. Rightwingers from Enoch Powell onwards have been warning that mass immigration will lead to ethnic minorities subjugating white Britons to their will. It just hasn’t happened. Research from Queen’s University Belfast shows that, rather than segregation, with one ethnic minority lording it over others, England and Wales are experiencing ever greater diversity, with different ethnic groups sharing the same neighbourhood.
Seven decades after the Windrush docked at Tilbury, ethnic groups coexist in London and other cities. They rub along, they row and they marry – just like people everywhere. It isn’t utopia, but it’s a long way from dystopia.
London is both astronomically wealthy and shatteringly poor. It is home to bankers and Deliveroo cyclists, eye-popping house prices and a serious homeless problem. It is the capital of an overcentralised country disfigured by inequality. Politicians should tackle those issues for the good of Londoners and everyone else, rather than spreading bigotry and fear and lies.
