Sadiq Khan has been blasted after appearing to abandon his promise to look into a controversial series of adverts across the Transport for London (TfL) estate.
Last week GB News exposed how adverts featuring a controversial Muslim preacher and Putin-linked UFC fighter were being displayed on public transport.
After Tory London Assembly member Susan Hall criticised Khan’s crackdown on junk food advertising but apparent lack of action on the Wahed billboards during Mayor’s Question Time last week, the Mayor said: “I’ll have a look at it as soon as Mayor’s Question Time is finished, to see what’s gone on there.”
But despite the assurances, GB News has been told the Mayor has “no involvement” in approving or deciding which adverts run on the TfL network – and, by Wednesday, no action had been taken on the billboards in question.
The ads show Islamic preacher Ismail ibn Musa Menk, known as “Mufti Menk” holding a briefcase of burning money
WAHED
Speaking to The People’s Channel, Hall accused Khan of intervening on TfL advertising matters only when it suited him.
She said: “I am at a loss for words. When I asked the Mayor about this advert, he said he would look into it, and now we discover that he apparently has no power over it.
“Why would he suggest he would look into it if he already knew this? It beggars belief!
“That’s before you even consider that he has intervened on advertising before, most famously over bikini models on the tube.
MORE OUTRAGE AT THE MAYOR:
Susan Hall was seen presenting photos of the ads, unearthed by GB News, to the MayorLONDON ASSEMBLY
“Londoners will want answers as to why the Mayor is able to intervene on some advertising and not others.
“It makes the entire system look patently ridiculous.”
In the wake of a 2016 row over so-called “body-shaming” ads on the Underground, Khan called for them to end – and explicitly stated he wanted to “send a clear message to the advertising industry about this”.
On social media, he said he was “pleased to announce TfL will no longer run ads on our tubes, trains and buses which could cause body confidence issues”.
Khan explicitly stated he wanted to “send a clear message to the advertising industry” in 2016
PA
Back then, TfL’s former commercial development director Graeme Craig noted that “customers cannot switch off” the tube advertising.
The ads at the centre of Hall and Khan’s fiery spat, for Islamic finance firm Wahed, show Muslim preacher Ismail ibn Musa Menk, known as “Mufti Menk”, and Ramzan Kadyrov-linked ex-UFC fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov, on billboards, Underground trains and buses across the capital.
Menk had been barred from entering Singapore in 2017 for what the country said were “unacceptable… segregationist and divisive teachings”, before being slapped with a two-year ban from Denmark the next year.
The Wahed debacle “makes the entire system look patently ridiculous”, Susan Hall said
GB NEWS
A few years earlier, he was banned from touring six UK universities after calling homosexuality “filthy” and comparing gay people to animals – statements he later retracted in full.
Meanwhile, Nurmagomedov enjoys close links to Russian warlord Ramzan Kadyrov – a close ally to Vladimir Putin who has gifted the fighter luxury cars, and handed him honorary citizenship of the southern Russian region of Chechnya.
Last week, TfL told GB News that the ads “had been reviewed” and were found to comply with its advertising policy – and continued to appear across London.
A spokeswoman for the Mayor said he “is clear that there is no place for hate in London and he strongly condemns any language which divides London’s amazing diverse communities”.
She added that TfL’s policy on ads “reflects legal requirements”.
GB News has approached the Mayor of London for further comment.