Is London Safe? It's Now Safer Than Every US State

July 24, 2026

A pompous clown-politician on a soapbox shouts that London is finished while a calm, sunny London carries on behind him.

There is a script and it never changes. A far-right politician looks at London, one of the most visited and most watched cities on earth, and decides it is a lawless hellscape full of knives and no-go zones. He says so loudly, usually to an American audience who have never been. It trends. A GB News panel nods along. Somebody sells a hat.

Then the actual figures come out, and London turns out to be safer than the town the politician is broadcasting from.

We are on the 2026 edition of this pantomime, so here is the honest thing the doom-mongers never do. Here is the data.

The number they do not want you to see

In 2025 London recorded 97 homicides. That was down 11 per cent on the year before and the lowest total since 2014, a year when the city had half a million fewer people living in it.

That works out at a homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000 people. It is the lowest since comparable records began in 1997. It is not the lowest in a decade. It is the lowest ever measured.

Here is how that compares with the cities the far right would like you to flee to.

London also comes in below Paris, Brussels, Barcelona and Madrid. Then there is the line that made even the Metropolitan Police Commissioner reach for the microphone.

"The homicide rate in London is lower than every single US state. It's lower than all their big cities."

Sir Mark Rowley, Metropolitan Police Commissioner

That covers every single US state, not merely the worst of them but all of them.

The no-go zones that are not there

Then there are the no-go zones, those mythical districts where, according to Donald Trump, the police do not even want to go. It is a claim so sturdy that it has survived being debunked continuously since about 2015.

Asked about it directly, the man who actually runs policing in London called it complete nonsense. His words were that there are no no-go areas and that the idea is completely false.

Vintage tourist map of central London stamped NO-GO ZONE in red, captioned with the Met Police verdict that the claim is completely false.

You would think that would settle it. It never does, because the no-go zone was never a place. It is a feeling, sold to people who will never visit by people who profit when those people are frightened.

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Same script, different clown, every year

This is the part worth remembering, because it is the part that never makes it onto the graphic.

In 2018 Trump called a London hospital a war zone over knife crime. In the years since, Nigel Farage has described the capital as being in the grip of a crime wave and Tommy Robinson has built a small industry on the idea that London has fallen. The villain changes. The script is photocopied.

Every year the same thing happens. The Met publishes its figures, London turns out to be one of the safest big cities on the planet, and the outrage merchants move on to next month's panic without ever admitting the last one was wrong.

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Teenage homicides in London fell to their joint lowest level in almost three decades in 2025, with eight victims and a fall of 73 per cent since 2021. The Met solved 95 per cent of homicides. None of this trends, because falling knife crime does not sell a rally ticket.

The outrage economy

Here is the genuinely interesting part, and it is why this keeps happening.

Sadiq Khan pointed out in July 2026 that stories about London being in decline or in danger have risen by 200 per cent on social media in two years. London did not get more dangerous. Being angry about London got more profitable. Bot farms make money from the fear. Foreign state actors amplify it. Influencers turn it into content. The Mayor calls it an outrage economy.

So the pattern is not a coincidence or a run of bad luck. It is a business model. London is finished is a product, and there is always somebody with a warehouse full of it to shift.

The difference is that we are honest about selling you a t-shirt.

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Is London safe? Yes, and it is measurable

None of this makes London a utopia. One murder is one too many, and the people who do the actual work, the youth workers, the Violence Reduction Unit and the detectives, are the first to say so. Complacency is not the point here.

But if your whole worldview depends on London being a burning lawless no-go zone, the Metropolitan Police have some bad news for you, and it arrives in the form of a spreadsheet.

London is safer than every US state. It is safer than Paris, Berlin and Milan. It is having its safest year on record.

The clowns will be back next month with a fresh panic. Bring the receipts.

Frequently asked questions

Is London safe in 2026?
Yes. London recorded its lowest homicide rate since records began in 1997, at 1.1 per 100,000 people, with 97 homicides in 2025. That was the fewest since 2014, even though the population has grown by more than half a million.

Are there really no-go zones in London?
No. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has called the claim complete nonsense and said plainly that there are no no-go areas and that the idea is completely false. Police and fact-checkers have debunked it repeatedly.

Is London more dangerous than New York?
No. London's homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000 is well under half of New York's 2.8. London's rate is also lower than every US state.

Is London safer than American cities?
Yes. London's homicide rate is lower than New York at 2.8, Los Angeles at 5.6, Houston at 10.5, Chicago at 11.7 and Philadelphia at 12.3. According to the Met Commissioner it is lower than every single US state.

Why do people keep saying London is dangerous?
Mayor Sadiq Khan puts it down to an outrage economy. Stories about London's decline rose 200 per cent on social media in two years, amplified by bot farms, foreign state actors and political figures who profit from the fear rather than the facts.