Sadiq Khan’s leftist government has been forced to deploy spy vans throughout London to enforce his expansion of the anti-car green agenda ULEZ tax as enraged citizens have destroyed or damaged hundreds of licence plate-reading surveillance cameras in the capital.
Transport for London (TfL) has reportedly deployed 20 vans equipped with spy cameras to try to crack down on drivers as the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) was expanded to all 32 boroughs of the city this week, requiring that people who drive cars that don’t meet the government’s pollution standards pay a tax of £12.50 per day, with a fines of up to £180 for non-compliance.
According to a report from The Telegraph, the vans are only capable of recording licence plates while stationary and therefore will need to be parked in areas deemed to have a high percentage of people not complying with the green diktats. The vans, which are marked as ULEZ monitors, will be linked to a mobile network, however, meaning that they may travel to different areas of the city during the day.
London Assembly member for Bexley and Bromley Peter Fortune said that the need for surveillance vans demonstrated that the leftist mayor will do “everything in his power to track, record and charge as many Londoners as possible”.
The deployment of the vans comes amid a wave of attacks by vigilantes against the ULEZ cameras, with at least 450 of the 1,762 recently installed cameras in the expanded ULEZ zone being either damaged or outright missing as of Thursday.
Data from Metropolitan Police revealed that there has been a sharp increase in vigilante attacks against Khan’s spy cameras, with August seeing as many cameras targeted by the public as in the previous four months combined.
The force said that there have been at least 600 reports of attacks on ULEZ cameras since the start of the year, although acknowledged that this may be an underrepresentation given that reports often mention more than one camera being attacked.
Earlier this week, former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith backed the civil disobedience efforts from the public against Khan’s dystopian climate cameras, saying: “A lot of people in my constituency have been cementing up the cameras or putting plastic bags over them.
“I am happy for them to do it because they are facing an imposition that no-one wants and they have been lied to about it.
“The actions you are seeing show how angry people are at what is being imposed on them. Sadiq Khan has gerrymandered all the information – people have had enough.”
A TfL spokesman said: “We have an extensive camera network, which is sufficient to support the effective operation of the scheme. We have deployed some mobile units as part of the mix of cameras.
“Anyone driving a non-compliant vehicle within the expanded zone will be detected, and we advise everyone to check whether their vehicle is compliant and to consider the various support that is available.”