The biography of Laila Cunningham contains a detail that simultaneously explains everything and nothing. She was 180 centimeters of awkward, noticeable adolescence in a London classroom at the age of eleven, standing five feet eleven inches tall and unable to blend in with the back row. Being that tall at that age affects more than just how other people perceive you. It influences how you learn to occupy space.
Growing up in Kilburn, she was one of five children from an Egyptian family that fled to Britain in the 1960s after being drawn west by the political unrest in Nasser’s Egypt. Like many immigrants of that time, her parents came with aspirations and quietly established roots, property, and stability. Laila attended the Lycée Franço Charles de Gaulle in South Kensington, a private school with a French curriculum, which provides insight into a family with aspirations for their kids’ futures. She was raised in a world that was constantly tugging at her and the London of her parents’ cautious hope, as well as between languages and cultures.
| Full Name | Laila Cunningham (née El-Meleigy, previously Dupuy) |
| Date of Birth | August 1977 |
| Place of Birth | Paddington, London |
| Height | 5ft 11in (180 cm) |
| Nationality | British |
| Ethnicity | Egyptian heritage |
| Education | Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, London; California State University, Long Beach |
| Profession | Politician, Former CPS Prosecutor, Entrepreneur |
| Party | Reform UK (defected from Conservative Party, June 2025) |
| Political Role | Councillor, Westminster City Council (2022–2026); Reform UK candidate, 2028 London mayoral election |
| Children | Seven (four biological, one with Michael Cunningham, two stepchildren) |
Really, the basketball was inevitable. When you’re in elementary school and almost six feet tall, the sport finds you before you do. The degree of obsession that ensued is less predictable. A certain type of adolescent is depicted in Cunningham’s description of her bedroom walls being covered in Michael Jordan posters: competitive, restless, and convinced that greatness is something you can study if you look long enough.
She participated in the London Youth Games, played for South East England, and eventually received training at the Center of Excellence for Basketball in Europe. She went all the way to California State University, Long Beach in 1997, where she wrote for the student newspaper using her birth name, Laila El-Meleigy. It wasn’t a pastime to play basketball. It was a practice for something.
She eventually joined the Crown Prosecution Service in Surrey after returning to London and earning her legal degree in 2005. Perhaps more than any parliamentary training program, her years as a prosecutor—reading evidence, crafting arguments, and remaining composed under duress—prepared her for political combat.
Those who have watched her on GB News or seen the widely shared videos of her arguing with Labour MPs, pointing fingers at them, and barely controlling her annoyance may recognize elements of the courtroom in the performance. She’s not attempting to convince. She’s attempting to prevail.
According to her own account, she had a more difficult time in her personal life. Her ten-year marriage to a Frenchman ended when he left for another woman in Dubai. She has talked about this fact in public with a tone that borders on matter-of-factness, as though she’s come to the conclusion that the only respectable way to deal with abandonment is to outpace it.
In 2018, she relocated to Los Angeles, entered the world of tech entrepreneurship, introduced the Kitchin Table app for independent contractors, and wed Michael Cunningham, an American tech investor. She returned to London with seven children—four from her first marriage, one with Michael, and two stepchildren she has referred to as her own—as well as a new name and political allegiance.
The layering of identities throughout her life is difficult to ignore. El-Meleigy went on to become Dupuy and then Cunningham. She was a Muslim who acknowledged that she doesn’t fast or pray during Ramadan. She is an immigrant’s daughter who now runs on a platform that many of the descendants of those immigrants find offensive.
She declared herself to be “very pro gay rights”, marched in a Pride parade, and then joined a party whose stance on the issue is, at best, ambiguous. As you watch this develop, you get the impression of someone who has spent their entire life refusing to fit into any one category and who entered politics in part because it’s one of the few fields that values that level of fluency.
She ran unsuccessfully for the London Assembly in 2024, joined Westminster City Council as a Conservative in 2022, and was scheduled to be the Conservative candidate in Rotherham before withdrawing for reasons the party has never fully disclosed. She defected to Reform UK in June 2025, claiming that the Conservatives had “let the country down”. The Tory council leader implied that she had “lost their trust” due to her frequent tardiness and absences. She refuted it. The majority of political divorces end up somewhere in the middle of that specific disagreement.
She was declared by Nigel Farage in January 2026 to be Reform’s 2028 London mayoral candidate. Since then, she has suggested eliminating the Ultra Low Emission Zone and giving British citizens preference in social housing. Elon Musk became involved in the dispute after she referred to a rival splinter party as “neo-Nazi,” which resulted in a legal warning. Seldom is a week quiet.
It remains to be seen if she can truly become mayor. London is not the nation that votes for reform in the shires, and Sadiq Khan won three terms. However, the party is well aware that Cunningham is not a stereotype of anyone. She is entertaining to watch. She has the restless energy of someone who, at eleven years old, ran at five feet eleven and never quite found a reason to slow down.
i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laila_Cunningham
ii) https://alarabinuk.com/en/reports/laila-ahmed-el-meleigy-laila-cunningham/
iii) https://sportsrecruits.com/athlete/laila_cunningham
iv) https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/laila-cunningham-reform-london-muslim-b1266515.html
v) https://politicsuk.com/news/who-is-laila-cunningham/