London Mayor Sadiq Khan stressed that the city has a “zero tolerance” policy for antisemitism in the wake of multiple antisemitic incidents in the last month.

Khan told the Jewish Chronicle that he was responding to Jewish residents of the city who had called for increased police patrols.

“The commissioner is doing is a number of things that should reassure the community, bringing back the bobbies on the beat and neighbourhood policing,” he said. “We've got an additional 650 officers both in town centres and in wards. And the idea is these officers don’t simply reassure the community but are the eyes and the ears of the police to get intelligence, to make people safer and feel safer as well.”

Khan also spoke about the community’s concerns over the closure of an investigation into an antisemitic mob attacking a bus full of Jewish teens celebrating the first night of Hanukkah last year.

According to UK media reports, London Police dropped the investigation in July after admitting that they had failed to identify any of the perpetrators in video footage of the incident.

After requesting the public's help in identifying the suspects captured on video on three separate occasions but not making any progress, the investigation was closed, an October police statement said.

“I’m disappointed. Unfortunately, there were no successful prosecutions but it's not for want of trying from the police service,” Khan said.

“The new commissioner understands the ripples of hatred that can spread when you allow individuals to… come to a community with a convoy or what we saw in Oxford Street. If anybody has information at all about either those two incidents, they should come forward,” he added, stressing that “just to reassure the community, the Met [police] has zero tolerance for antisemitism, just like City Hall.”

The London mayor said that he would push for more local city police funding rather than wait for central government money.

“The Jewish community will see more and more police officers, as a consequence of both City Hall funding and some government support,” he promised.

“After 12 years of austerity, we're still officers short because our population has grown. Over the last 10 years we've got a million more Londoners. We've got fewer police officers. So we've invested from City Hall directly,” Khan said.