Sadiq Khan’s predecessor as Mayor of London has accused him of indulging in “politically correct virtue-signalling” while crime takes over the capital.

Boris Johnson, who served two terms as London Mayor before returning to frontline parliamentary politics in 2016, described Sadiq Khan’s “abject failure… either to grip the problem, or even to take responsibility” as an “outrage” in a column for The Telegraph.

“He blames funding (when he was left with a large war chest by me); he blames the Tory Government; he blames society,” wrote the Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP.

“He blames everyone but himself, when it is his paramount duty to keep Londoners safe. It is a pathetic performance.”

Murder Surges 44 Per Cent in Khan’s London Amidst ‘Troubling’ Rise in Serious Crime https://t.co/lM2ewca1Z5 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 20, 2018

Johnson claimed that when he took office in 2008, the first thing his team did was “cast political correctness to the winds, and [begin] a big programme to take the knives off the streets” by using police stop-and-search powers against suspected gang members.

He contrasted this position with that of Sadiq Khan, who vowed he would “do all in my power” to slash the number of stop-and-searches — which were, in fact, already falling — while campaigning to succeed Johnson in 2015.

Khan, who made his name as a publicity-hungry ‘human rights’ lawyer for dubious clients such as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan before rising to the left-wing Labour Party’s front ranks, argued that stop-and-search was being deployed in a racist manner, with black and ethnic minority youths more likely to be searched than their white counterparts.

Politically incorrect politicians such as Philip Davies MP have argued that this is simply because ‘BAME’ youths are statistically more likely to be perpetrators and victims of violent crime, and that it actually more likely for white individuals to be searched without cause than non-white people — but much of the British left remains adamantly opposed to stop-and-search to this day.

NY’s Rudy Giuliani on London’s Khan: ‘Attacking Trump While Crime Spiralling, He Should Be Ashamed’ https://t.co/Dlsqm9wQkK — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 9, 2018

Khan was forced to completely reverse his position on stop-and-search in early 2018 as youth homicide, acid attacks, stabbings, and even shootings surged across London, with the violence now beginning to spill out of the capital and into neighbouring towns and suburbs in so-called ‘county lines’ crimes.

Johnson also jabbed at Theresa May, who as Home Secretary under the David Cameron administration also pushed for stop-and-search to be curtailed, remarking that it was “certainly a serious mistake in 2015 for the Home Office to order a move away from stop-and-search” — even if it was ultimately up to Khan to stand up to “caterwauling” from his “left-wing base” and provide a “moral and political lead”.

The aside may have been a shot across the bows for the Prime Minister, with Johnson having recently resigned as her government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary on grounds that her Brexit strategy risked turning the United Kingdom into an EU “colony”.

It is widely expected that, should Tory Brexiteers mount a leadership challenge against Remain-supporting Mrs May, Johnson would be their candidate of choice.

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery