MAYOR of London Boris Johnson provoked fury yesterday when he branded the city’s black cab drivers Luddites at a London Assembly meeting.

The City Hall meeting was abandoned and security guards were ordered to the public gallery as the cabbies howled their response to Mr Johnson’s supposed slur during Mayor’s Question Time.

The cab drivers, who are members of transport union RMT and general union GMB, are engaged in a bitter battle over the undermining of their jobs by private hire firms and the failure of Mr Johnson, also head of Transport for London (TfL), to clarify the body’s position on new private hire services.

Mr Johnson responded to shouts from the public gallery by saying: “Can I just say to all the Luddites in the room who don’t want to see new technology…”

The Luddites were heroic 19th-century textile workers who took direct action against new machinery that massively lowered the quality of their product and put them out of work.

The meeting was abandoned in chaos and there were clashes between cab drivers and security guards, causing some injuries.

Labour Assembly Leader Len Duval said that Mr Johnson’s “name-calling” had sparked the incident.

“City Hall should be a forum for debate and discussion about the issues, not insults and mudslinging,” he said.

RMT London taxi cab branch secretary Loewis Norton said: “It is a shocking and sad indictment of Boris Johnson’s attitude to London taxi drivers.

“For the last 18 months the RMT has been seeking a working definition of black cabs and private hire. All he has done is push this around and say he cannot limit the free market.

“Events like today just compound that he has not been listening.”