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A candidate to become the next mayor of London today called for cannabis to be legalised.

Lib-Dem Siobhan Benita said decriminalising the class-B drug would help to tackle the capital’s violent crime epidemic.

Her intervention follows an Evening Standard investigation into reforming the laws on cannabis. We found that 63 per cent of Londoners back its legalisation for adult recreational use.

Siobhan Benita Lib Dem candidate

Siobhan Benita: Sadiq Khan is “definitely not unbeatable”.

In an interview with the Standard, Ms Benita also revealed plans to revive the Lib-Dems’ “Bollocks to Brexit” slogan to court voters for City Hall next May.

The LibDems topped the polls in London in May’s Euro elections, taking 27.2 per cent of the vote and electing three MEPs. Labour got 23.9 per cent while the Conservatives plummeted to 7.8 per cent.

“Data from the Euro elections is telling us that this is winnable,” she said.

Ms Benita believes Labour’s confused stance on Brexit and its response to allegations of antisemitism will lead to a loss of support for incumbent Sadiq Khan, despite his personal opposition to Brexit and support for Jewish Londoners.

She accused Mr Khan of failing to get a grip on the underlying causes of violence. She said he was too focused on blaming the Government for a lack of police. She said: “He is definitely not unbeatable.”

Ms Benita said decriminalising cannabis would allow police to concentrate on more serious crimes. There have been 89 homicides in London so far this year.

Ms Benita said: “We don’t tackle knife crime only with policing, we tackle it with early intervention. This is about leadership and bringing people together. That is where Sadiq has spectacularly failed.”

She said: “If you bring in a legalised and well-regulated market for cannabis, you remove the power from the organised criminal gangs that are selling drugs.

“The link between illegal drugs and serious violence is well documented. The way you do this is by following good practice in Canada and the US.”

Recreational use is legal in Canada and in 11 US states, and is decriminalised in a further 15. The UK law on cannabis is for up to five years’ prison for possession and up to 14 years for supply and production.

“I would start with cannabis in terms of legalising the market,” Ms Benita said. “We could regulate it to control the quality.

“In terms of other substances, we should have a much more supportive approach to people who are addicted to drugs, rather than putting them through the criminal justice system.”

Ms Benita added: “I would like to go further [than decriminalisation] and legalise it. One of the key reasons for doing that is so we could regulate the strength and control the quality. That is safer for users and removes power from criminal gangs.”

Ms Benita, 47, quit her job as a London-based administrator for the University of Warwick at the weekend to work full-time on the campaign. She stood as an independent in 2012, when she won 83,914 votes, fewer than 8,000 behind Lib-Dem candidate Brian Paddick.

The former Whitehall civil servant, from Kingston, joined the Lib-Dems in 2016 after the EU referendum.

Mr Khan received 1.1m first-preference votes in the 2016 City Hall elections, on the way to securing the biggest personal mandate in a UK election.

Ms Benita hopes Conservative voters will see her rather than Tory candidate Shaun Bailey, a Brexiteer, as the best way to defeat Mr Khan.

A recent YouGov poll showed Mr Khan’s popularity had fallen to minus three, with 30 per cent of respondents satisfied and 33 per cent dissatisfied with his performance.

Under the mayoral election system, Ms Benita would have to be one of the top two candidates from the first round of voting to proceed to the second round, when any second-preference votes would be added to her total.

The Lib-Dems came fourth in 2016 with 120,005 votes, well behind Mr Khan and Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith, and 30,668 votes behind Green Sian Berry, who is standing again.

siobhan benita

Siobhan Benita: “I have never taken drugs in my life. I have only ever smoked one cigarette”

Ms Benita, married with student daughters aged 19 and 20, said her priorities would be knife crime and serious violence, the environment and air quality, “homes that people can afford” rather than “affordable homes”, and Brexit.

She plans a “values-based” campaign that rises above traditional party rivalries.

“There is a pool of people in London with liberal values who now consider voting Lib-Dem an option,” she said.

“They believe immigration is a good thing. They believe we need to tackle climate change. They think that equality and gay marriage are a good thing. They’re against Brexit.”

She is due to make her first major policy announcements in a keynote speech at the Lib-Dem annual conference in Bournemouth next month and has the backing of new Lib-Dem leader Jo Swinson.

She would appoint a “young mayor for London” as one of her deputies, paid £40,000 from the £143,911 mayoral salary.

Asked whether she had taken drugs, Ms Benita replied: “I can honestly say, and I’m quite embarrassed about it as it makes me sound quite nerdy, I have never taken drugs in my life. I have only ever smoked one cigarette.”

A Labour party source said: “Londoners know that you simply can’t trust the Lib Dems. They betrayed every promise they made when they joined the Coalition Government and are just as responsible for the cuts to the police and youth services that caused the rise in violent crime as the Tories.”