Laurence Fox loses deposit after failing to become London Assembly member

Laurence Fox has lost his £5,000 deposit after securing just 0.5 per cent of votes in his attempt to become a London Assembly member.

Mr Fox had already been barred from taking part in the London mayoral elections after submitting invalid nomination papers.

But the actor-turned-right-wing political activist did manage to correctly submit his papers to be a candidate for the London Assembly.

Mr Fox polled just 0.55 per cent of the 2,493,805 votes cast for the London-wide assembly members.

He received 13,795 votes, below the five per cent threshold required to have his deposit returned.

The Reclaim Party founder has been the subject of several high-profile controversies in recent weeks.

Mr Fox was ordered to pay out £180,000 in libel damages to a drag artist and a charity boss after he referred to them as paedophiles on social media.

A social media post by Mr Fox is also being investigated by police about an “upskirting offence”.

The now-deleted tweet, posted on Tuesday, featured a compromising image of Narinder Kaur, a broadcaster who appears regularly on Good Morning Britain and GB News. The post remained on Fox’s account until it was deleted on Thursday.

The broadcaster is seeking legal advice following the post.

London Elects, the impartial organisation that oversees the City Hall elections, said in March that Mr Fox’s application to stand in the mayoral election was “not valid”.

At the time he claimed he had been deliberately blocked from standing.

In 2021, Mr Fox received 47,634 first-preference votes, putting him sixth out of 20 candidates. He was eliminated after the first round of voting and lost his deposit after failing to reach the threshold of five per cent of votes cast.

Mr Fox has said he had been “cancelled” as an actor after expressing controversial views on numerous subjects.

In the 2021 mayoral election, he stood on an “anti-woke” platform and broke with the consensus of encouraging uptake of the covid vaccine as he called for lockdown to be lifted.

He was sacked by GB News last September after questioning who would want to “shag” a female journalist.

Ofcom ruled the episode of Dan Wootton Tonight had broken broadcasting rules.