London Tories Are At War Over Divisive Conservative Mayoral Hopeful

The Tory decision to field Susan Hall to fight the London mayoral election in May has opened yet another chasm in the divided party, with some Conservatives in the capital complaining that a real opportunity to defeat "beatable" Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan has been squandered.

Hall, selected as the Tory candidate in July, has been a Member of the London Assembly since 2017 where she has served as the Conservative leader. Since defying expectations to defeat better-known candidates, including former minister Paul Scully and former Boris Johnson advisor Samuel Kasumu, to secure the Conservative mayoral candidacy, she has faced criticism for her declarations of support for Donald Trump and her engagement with extreme right-wing content on social media.

Hall's supporters have leapt to her defence, however, arguing that she is a "formidable" challenger who is better placed to win on a Tory ticket than someone with closer links to the severely damaged brand of Rishi Sunak's national Conservative party, which has trailed Labour in the polls for over a year. 

Khan, first elected to City Hall in 2016 and currently serving his second term, is favourite to secure another four years when London goes to the polls on Thursday, 2 May. A YouGov survey published in November put the former Labour MP for Tooting a massive twenty-five per cent ahead of Hall, although Khan has cautiously insisted he does not believe the recent polling.

The level of frustration among London Tories who aren't backing Hall is so high that Scully, the current Conservative MP for Sutton, Cheam & Worcester Park, had been considering resigning the party whip in order to run as an independent mayoral candidate in the capital. PoliticsHome understands however that he