A campaign calling for an immediate halt to Google’s driverless taxi trial in London has been launched by Green Party councillors in Brent, who warn the technology poses a direct threat to the livelihoods of 150,000 private hire drivers in the capital — and that the city is being used as a testing ground for Silicon Valley experiments with insufficient public scrutiny.
The Say No To Waymo campaign was launched following a series of incidents involving the autonomous vehicles since Waymo — an American self-driving technology company owned by Google’s parent Alphabet — began its London pilot last month with the aim of operating a fully driverless taxi service later this year. The vehicles are not yet carrying paying passengers, currently mapping London’s streets with a safety driver behind the wheel, but the company intends to remove that human presence entirely when the commercial service launches.
The campaign was triggered in part by an incident on 22 April in which a Waymo vehicle drove into an active crime scene in Harlesden, Brent — the very borough where the company’s UK depot is located, at a facility in Park Royal that serves as the operational hub for its driverless Jaguar I-Pace fleet. Two newly elected Green councillors were galvanised by the incident and brought together a group of residents and workers on Harlesden High Street last Friday, 22 May, to mark the launch of the campaign.
Councillor Amandine Alexandre, representing Harlesden and Kensal Green, said the more she learned about the technology the more convinced she became that Londoners had nothing to gain from it. “Those oversized vehicles are clogging up our roads, collecting tons of energy-consuming data and taking us one step closer to a future where human interactions become the exception rather than the rule,” she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Councillor Suzanne Gallagher, representing Kilburn, added that the party was not opposed to innovation in principle but was “fiercely opposed to our city being used as a testing ground for Silicon Valley experiments.” She called on Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan to follow the lead of New York, which paused Waymo’s permits and halted further driverless trials earlier this year, citing safety concerns, liability issues, lack of stakeholder support and the risk of job losses for professional drivers.
The App Drivers and Couriers Union, which represents workers in the platform economy, said the fear of losing income was “a constant and growing worry at the back of drivers’ minds.” Its General Secretary warned that London could not afford a “tech-first, people-last experiment,” calling for rigorous safety standards, environmental safeguards, legally enforceable job security and funded retraining before any full rollout. “No rollout without public consent. And no future that leaves drivers behind,” the union said.
Brent Council Leader Muhammed Butt told the LDRS that it would be “irresponsible” for the council not to engage with a major global business investing significantly in Park Royal, but stressed that “engagement is not a blank cheque.”
A spokesperson for the Mayor said Sir Sadiq Khan was “determined to harness the opportunities” presented by automated vehicles while recognising “the potential negative impact” on jobs and the economy, and would ensure the technology was introduced “in a way that works for all Londoners.”
Waymo said scepticism towards its vehicles was “natural” but claimed it “quickly fades” as people grow accustomed to them. The company pointed to the UK’s Automated Vehicles Act 2024, which places liability on the manufacturer or software developer when a vehicle is operating fully autonomously, and said it was engaging with community organisations, borough leaders and Labour representatives on an ongoing basis.
