Tory London mayoral candidate Susan Hall is “unfit” for public life, the Labour Party’s chairwoman has said, after Ms Hall suggested apparently Islamophobic tweets were just “hurty words”.
Ms Hall has caused controversy by liking a string of tweets in the past that appeared to include Islamophobic abuse of Labour rival Sadiq Khan.
In an interview with Prospect magazine this week, she was asked about supporting a 2019 post by commentator Katie Hopkins which described the Muslim mayor as the “nipple-height mayor of Londonistan”.
The former Conservative leader on the London Assembly told the magazine: “I’ll tell you what’s jarring.
“Jarring is the fact that poor people are having to pay £12.50 a day (the charge for London’s Ultra-Low Emissions Zone) that they literally cannot afford. That is real. And that isn’t just hurty words.”
In response, Labour chairwoman Anneliese Dodds said on Friday: “Islamophobia is dangerous and damaging to our politics and society. For Susan Hall to dismiss it as ‘hurty words’ shows how unfit she is for public life.
“Rishi Sunak needs to get a grip on these extreme views which threaten to overwhelm his party.”
It comes after MP Lee Anderson was stripped of the Tory whip last month for suggesting Mr Khan was being controlled by Islamist extremists.
Ms Hall is running against Labour incumbent Mr Khan in the London mayoral election on May 2.
The Conservatives came under fire this week for a social media advert attacking Mr Khan’s record on crime, and were forced to delete the original clip after it emerged that it featured scenes of chaos from a New York City subway station instead of London.
Tory MP Paul Scully, who challenged Ms Hall to be the Tory candidate for London mayor, said on Thursday that her campaign should call out Mr Khan’s record instead of “putting out a scare video about New York”.
He told Times Radio: “You have to have someone that you can see as a chief executive of London, you need to run a campaign on that basis. So it’s not just about trying to scare the bejesus out of people because they don’t like the incumbent or something like that.”
A spokesperson for Ms Hall said: “Unlike Sadiq Khan, Susan is listening to Londoners and as mayor, she will put more police on the beat, ensure women feel safe, scrap the Ulez (Ultra-Low Emissions Zone) expansion and build more affordable family homes.
“Those are the issues people care about and that is Susan’s sole focus between now and May 2.”
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