Private hire drivers from the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain protested outside Transport for London's annual dinner at the Guildhall on Thursday 15 October. They want Mayor Sadiq Khan and TfL commissioner Andy Lord to stop driverless cars in London.
The dinner is a black-tie fundraiser for the London Transport Museum, hosted by TfL. It ran from 6pm to 12.30am at Guildhall, Gresham Street. Taxi Point says drivers spoke to guests and handed out leaflets. PHTM says they chanted "every car feeds a family" and "stop driverless cars", and that delivery riders were with them. Neither report says how many people were there, or that anyone went inside the hall. No one is reported to have been arrested.
This is separate from the ADCU protest called for Wayve's office on York Way today, and from the Assembly report already published.
What they said
Gholomreza Kamyabi, known as Rez, an Uber driver and vice-chair of the union's private hire branch, said they took action so Sadiq Khan would face "just a few of the 100,000 people whose lives will be torn apart". He said the gain would go to "tech bro billionaires", and that the dinner was a world away from the anxiety drivers feel.
Alex Marshall, the union's president, said they were left with no option but to "crash" the party because Khan and TfL were ignoring drivers. He said TfL should follow New York and stop driverless cars.
The union's 100,000 is the size of the private hire workforce it says is exposed, not a count of redundancies. TfL's own licensing figures for the week ending 4 October put London private hire driver licences at 113,166.
The report, and New York
The Assembly's Transport Committee has already said it has not heard enough to be persuaded that London should welcome autonomous passenger services. It asked for a plan for any job losses if permits are issued. It did not itself forecast 100,000 losses.
In New York, Waymo's permit to test eight cars, with a safety specialist at the wheel, ran out on 31 March 2026. The city has not renewed it. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has not started a wider robotaxi service. The cars can still be driven manually to collect data. That is not a London-style ban written into law, and TfL's power to refuse a London service is not the same as New York's permit.