Senior London Tory Refuses To Vote For Any Leadership Candidate
Andrew Boff was first elected as Chair of the London Assembly last year (Alamy)
5 min read
Andrew Boff, Chair of the London Assembly, has said he will not vote for any of the Conservative leadership candidates as he is "appalled" by their approaches to migration and human rights.
Boff has been active in the Conservative Party for more than 50 years, a member of the London Assembly since 2008, and unsuccessfully sought to become the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London six times – including this year.
He has been an outspoken critic of some of the most senior Conservative politicians in recent years, and was kicked out of last year's Tory conference after heckling then-home secretary Suella Braverman during her speech. Boff, who is openly gay, spoke out during the speech, calling it "trash" and a "homophobic rant".
One year later, with the Tories now out of government, Boff remains very critical of the ideological direction of the party and voiced doubts over whether it can return to power at the next election. As the four remaining candidates for the party leadership battle it out in hustings at this year's Conservative Party conference, Boff has revealed he will not be voting for any of them due to their stances on migration, the ECHR, and LGBT+ rights.
The London politician said he had been "appalled" by some of the things the contenders have said in recent weeks.
"The fact that the candidates are still talking about pulling out the ECHR, i.e. taking away British people's rights and building a stronger state, frightens the hell out of me," Boff told PoliticsHome.
"They're talking about bringing back the Rwanda policy, which is absolutely unjustifiable from any humanitarian standpoint, let alone human rights.
"They're talking about an obsession with the culture wars – nobody cares about the culture wars, only a very small set of people with an axe to grind. Yet we're seeing that as a part of the program of some of the candidates, and it's made me realise how little I want to vote for any of them."
He explained he wanted the opportunity to vote for the chair of the party instead, as he believes there are fundamental issues with how the party is being run.
"The problems in the Conservative Party are not what you say on the stage in Birmingham: the problem with the Conservative Party is the fact that we're leeching members," Boff said.
"We haven't got the people to canvas, to stand for council, to knock on doors, to become community champions. We haven't got the people anymore and the person who can fix that is a very focused party chair... It's really important."
Asked whether he was particularly worried about any of the four candidates in the running to be leader, he said he did not think "it really matters" who the next leader will be.
"I don't think we've got the organisation to fight another general election, and unless we tend to the membership, we're not going to get there," he said.
All four leadership contenders have focused heavily on the issue of migration, and even Tom Tugendhat – widely regarded as the most centrist candidate in the contest – has said the UK should leave the ECHR if it is not reformed, as it has made the UK government's agenda on migration "more contentious and harder".
"The Conservative Party is about liberation, or it is nothing," Boff said.
"The Conservative Party is about freeing people, without giving people power to control their own life. It's about a small government, not a large, all encompassing nanny state. And what surprises me is the rhetoric that comes from people who want to change that sounds like the same rhetoric that you get from socialists saying we want big government to fix things."
He added that he felt it was "psephologically bonkers" for the party to primarily focus on winning back votes from Reform, when many more seats had been lost to the Liberal Democrats and Labour.
Since the incident at conference last year when he was kicked out of the conference, Boff said he had received no apology from anyone in the party – despite feeling that the security response had been somewhat heavy-handed.
Would he heckle a Tory speech again? "Yes," he responded immediately.
"When you hear bullies, you must challenge them. It's our duty to, it's our obligation. When you see people embarking upon a course that you know is going to result in misery for other people, then you should challenge them. It's how I was brought up.
"And if you just sit there and you listen to it, and if you pass this over your head, then you're complicit in that. So you should protest, you should heckle."
But Boff will never quit the party, he says, even if it continues to move in an ideological direction he disagrees with.
"It's my party," he insisted.
"They would have to chuck me out kicking and screaming. There are people who run or there are people who stay and fight. I stay and fight."
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
