Bold Claim: Laila Cunningham Says Boost Christianity in London

Laila Cunningham is standing in the bathroom at Reform UK headquarters, weighing up two blazers before an interview. One is a sleek brown jacket from Zara. The other is cornflower blue, slightly fussy, with a tie at the neck and just close enough to Reform turquoise to feel deliberate. She pulls the brown one off over her head, briefly unselfconscious, and studies the blue instead. Moments earlier she had greeted me with a brisk handshake and little warmth, but the shared space softens the mood. I suggest the brown feels more like her, while the blue looks more political. She nods and decides political is exactly the point.

Laila Cunningham Says

Cunningham was a relatively obscure Westminster councillor until she defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK last June. Since then, her profile has surged. She is a regular on GB News, sharp on camera, and unafraid of confrontation. Clips of her sparring with Labour MPs have travelled widely online, her finger stabbing the air as she talks over opponents. In one exchange, an exasperated voice pleads with her to allow respectful debate.

Last week, Nigel Farage named the 48 year old as Reform’s London mayoral candidate for 2028. It was a marked contrast to the party’s 2024 candidate, Howard Cox, who secured just over three percent of the vote at a time when Reform was still widely dismissed as marginal. Today, the party is riding high in opinion polls, has five MPs, and has become a refuge for former Conservatives seeking a political comeback. Among the most high profile defectors is Nadhim Zahawi, once a fierce critic of Farage. Copies of newspapers reporting his move lie open across Reform’s Millbank Tower offices.

Before the interview begins, Cunningham sprays Nicorette into her mouth. She says she is not trying to quit smoking, but uses it to sharpen her focus. In person, she is direct and composed, maintaining steady eye contact and speaking plainly. She occasionally taps the table with a red manicured nail, a softer echo of the combative persona seen online.

Reform continues to struggle with perceptions of racism. A YouGov poll last October found that more than four in ten Britons, and half of Londoners, believed the party and its policies were generally racist. Cunningham bristles at the charge. She is the daughter of Egyptian immigrants and, like London mayor Sadiq Khan, is Muslim. “I would never be part of a racist party,” she says firmly.

Yet her selection has triggered backlash from far right activists on X, some of whom had hoped for a candidate such as Ant Middleton. Cunningham has been labelled everything from an Islamist to a Mossad agent, with some calling for her deportation despite her being born in Paddington. She says she was taken aback by the ferocity of the abuse, but remains a staunch defender of free speech online. Others have circulated a photograph of her attending a Pride march in 2022, when she was still a Conservative councillor, as supposed proof that she is secretly progressive. She dismisses the claim. “I’ve always been pro gay rights and always will be,” she says.

Cunningham believes her politics were shaped early. Her mother was a committed Thatcherite who taught her self reliance and hard work. Her parents arrived in London in the 1960s, working multiple jobs before moving into property development. Cunningham, born Laila El Meleigy, was the youngest of five children, raised in Kensal Rise and educated at the Lycée in South Kensington. Tall and competitive, she played basketball and thrived on challenge.

Her personal life has been turbulent. She was married for a decade to a French entrepreneur, Philippe Dupuy, with whom she has four children. The marriage ended when he left her for another woman. She later married Michael Cunningham, an American tech executive, and now considers herself a mother of seven. The family live in Bayswater.

Professionally, Cunningham trained as a lawyer and worked as a Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor while serving as a councillor. She resigned from the CPS after joining Reform and publicly criticising policing and online safety legislation.

Like many on the right, she paints London as a city in crisis, gripped by crime under Khan. She rejects official statistics showing falling homicide and knife crime rates, arguing that safety cannot be measured by deaths alone. She speaks of a rape epidemic, rampant shoplifting, and a lack of visible policing. Her campaign, she says, will be rooted in law and order, including expanded stop and search powers and stricter controls on face coverings.

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She is also outspoken on culture. Cunningham opposes the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone and distrusts City Hall data on air quality. More controversially, she criticises public celebrations of religious festivals such as Eid in Trafalgar Square. “Celebrate whatever you want privately,” she says, “but the civic culture of a city has to be British.”

London, she insists, is not a Muslim city. She would like to see Christianity and Judeo Christian traditions more openly celebrated, suggesting ideas ranging from prominent Easter events to citywide activities for families. She also wants the Union flag displayed more widely across the capital.

The mayoral race is still three years away, but Cunningham is already planning a long campaign of walking the city and listening to voters. At home, she spends most of her time with her children, some of whom openly reject her politics. “They tell me they won’t talk to me because of my ultra right wing party,” she says with a laugh.

As the interview ends, a fire alarm sounds through Reform HQ. Cunningham jokes darkly before grabbing her phone and heading for the stairs with the rest of the staff. Outside, in drizzle and fog, Parliament looms nearby. The mood among the Reform team is buoyant, as if proximity to power feels closer than ever.