On Monday 27th July, the Liberal Democrat's London mayoral candidate announced that she was withdrawing her candidacy from the election race.
Siobhan Benita was slated to run for the City Hall elections due in May. But the elections were postponed to April 2021 owing to Coronavirus pandemic. Citing her commitment issues, she said,
“The elections were delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and I am simply not able to commit to another full year of campaigning and very sadly have to announce that I won’t be able to contest for the election in 2021.
“But I would like to keep working on issues like tackling knife crime and battling racial discrimination that unfortunately still exists in London going forward in some capacity.”
Liberal Democrats have already begun the process of finding a replacement for Siobhan and that the details on the selection of the new candidate will be announced in due course.
As part of her campaign Siobhan was advocating for the legalisation of cannabis, a transformation of the social housing especially for the homeless.
Acting leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said he was "very sorry to see Siobhan stand down at this time, but she will continue to be a huge asset to our party".
Benita is the second major candidate to leave the contest after independent candidate Rory Stewart stood down in early May.
