While Brexit is making all the headlines, the most serious local issue I am contaced about by my constituents is crime.

I will soon be meeting with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), and letting them know how unhappy Havering residents are with current crime rates.

This is not only an issue of funding and numbers, but policy, I know that most people in Havering favour a robust approach to violent criminals.

This disconnect between the public and the office of London Mayor Sadiq Khan could not be wider.

One example is the recent antics of Labour members in City Hall, who decided to vote down an amendment to the Mayor’s draft budget, which would have freed almost £83 million, enough to invest in 1,400 new police officers.

We often hear the claim that the government’s policies mean the mayor cannot increase policing numbers, but his fully costed plan has identified where funding can be found, if he had bothered to do his job properly.

Savings would have been made by cutting the millions spent on PR spin doctors, the increased wages of Greater London Authority bureaucrats, and virtue signalling schemes such as banning junk food ads on TfL, which just results in a loss of revenue for TfL.

The spin knows no bounds for the mayor, he claims knife crime rates in London are slowing when compared to the rest of England and Wales, yet the latest ONS figures show this is factually untrue. Hopefully, the mayor’s team will understand public frustration, and I will be making the argument forcefully.

Reflecting the view from House of Commons can be fragile, as amendments on the government Brexit deal have given the prime minister an instruction to go back to Brussels and get a better deal, by dumping the awful “backstop”! It ties us into something on potentially a very long-term basis. It’s not Brexit and we need to change that completely. I’m also not convinced we should pay £39b in one go until we’re certain there’s a proper free trade agreement. If the PM can’t deliver a better deal, then it must be “No Deal” and let’s go with WTO!