Sadiq Khan said local people are “disgusted that the Conservatives will try and mislead Londoners” after the Conservative Party posted an attack ad on Labour featuring scenes from New York despite the video being about London.
The clip posted on X attacking the London Mayor used footage of a stampede in a New York subway station.
The ad in support of Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall was quickly withdrawn and replaced with a video where the New York scenes had been cut.
Mr Khan told the PA news agency: “I’ve been speaking to Londoners today and listening to them, many of them have seen the original video put out by my Conservative opponent, by the Conservative Party.
“They’re disgusted that the Conservatives will try and mislead Londoners.
“It beggars belief that you’ve got somebody aspiring to be the mayor of this great city talking down this great city, but using lies, misinformation but also images and pictures from another country, another city.
“My worry is we’re going to have six weeks of this, another divisive campaign where the Tories spread lies, misinformation.
“What I’d say in a respectful way to the Tories and my Tory opponent is, stop it.”
Ms Hall is running against Labour incumbent Mr Khan in the London mayoral election on May 2nd.
In the original black-and-white video, the scenes of a stampede at New York’s Penn Station in 2017 were overlaid with an ominous US-accented narrator saying: “A 54 per cent increase in knife crime since the Labour mayor seized power has the metropolis teetering on the brink of chaos.
“And in the chaos, people seek a desperate reprieve.”
The video also warned of “squads of Ulez-enforcers dressed in black, faces covered with masks, terrorising communities at the beck and call of their Labour mayor master, who has implemented a tax on driving, forcing people to stay inside or go underground”.
“Gripped by the tendrils of rising crime, London citizens stay inside,” the narration continues. “The streets are quiet.”
A source close to the Susan Hall campaign said: “The advert was not put out by Susan Hall’s campaign.
“Unlike the attack advert van launched by Sadiq Khan yesterday, which featured four falsehoods spread by him about Susan Hall on the side.
“Sadiq should stop peddling misinformation. His faux outrage is laughable – from a man who peddles misinformation, said he wouldn’t expand Ulez and did anyway, and prints misinformation on the side of his advertising vans.
“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and the mayor is practically standing in Kew Gardens.”
Mr Khan took office in 2016 and is seeking an unprecedented third term in office.
The Conservative Party has been asked to comment.
