Laila Cunningham, the lawyer chosen by Nigel Farage to challenge Sadiq Khan for Mayor of London, has built a public image on tough rhetoric and law-and-order pledges. However, behind her political ascent lies a profound personal heartbreak that she credits as the catalyst for her career.
A Family Abandoned: The Dubai Departure
The Reform UK rising star was left to raise four young children alone after her husband of ten years, French entrepreneur Philippe Dupuy, walked out on the family. He departed their London home in 2013 to start a new life in Dubai with a younger woman, later identified as financial trader Sarah, originally from the Netherlands.
The collapse of the marriage forced Cunningham into a period of intense personal rebuilding. She described it as a pivotal turning point, revealing in a 2018 interview: ‘After being married for ten years and having four children, my husband just left to be with a woman in Dubai. That really catapulted me into action.’
Friends say she was left to ‘fight her own battles’, juggling childcare with her professional commitments as a single mother. Meanwhile, Dupuy launched a financial consultancy in Dubai before remarrying. Notably, his new wife bears a striking resemblance to Cunningham.
From Business Setback to Political Ambition
In the wake of her divorce, Cunningham attempted to channel her experience into entrepreneurship. In 2017, she founded Kitchin Table, a women-only co-working concept run from private homes. She said the idea came from missing office community while not wanting to be stuck in one.
However, the business struggled to scale and was ultimately dissolved in 2024, with the pandemic dealing a significant blow to its model. In the same year Kitchin Table was founded, she married her second husband, American Michael Cunningham, with whom she had another child and became a stepmother to his two children. The couple now live in a £5 million flat in Bayswater.
Following her entrepreneurial setback, Cunningham pivoted decisively towards politics. She secured a role as a councillor while holding a senior post at the Crown Prosecution Service. After winning the Lancaster Gate seat for the Conservatives in 2022, she defected to Reform UK in 2024, resigning from the CPS after remarks on net zero and law and order were deemed to breach impartiality rules.
The Vigilante Mum Takes on City Hall
Now 48, Cunningham is framing next year’s mayoral contest as a ‘binary choice’ between herself and the Labour incumbent, Sir Sadiq Khan. She has cited her personal experiences with crime as a key motivator, describing herself as a ‘vigilante mum’ who tracked down balaclava-clad muggers who targeted her children after she felt police failed to help.
‘I protected my family when the state couldn’t,’ she stated this week. Her political instincts, allies say, were hardened by her personal upheaval. ‘Laila doesn’t back down,’ a source close to the councillor said. ‘The divorce forced her to toughen up. That’s fed directly into how she operates in public life.’
As the Muslim daughter of Egyptian migrants who arrived in the UK and built a property business, Cunningham is an unconventional figure for Farage’s party. She has spoken of experiencing constant racist and misogynistic abuse online but says her background in criminal justice allows her to brush it aside. Selected as the face of Reform’s ‘Women for Reform’ campaign, her personal story of resilience is now central to her bid to break Labour’s 12-year grip on London.
