Veteran assembly member Andrew Boff is making his seventh bid to become Mayor of London reports Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter
A London Assembly veteran will attempt to become the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London for the seventh time.
Andrew Boff, who currently chairs the London Assembly, has tried to become his party’s choice to contest City Hall in every election since 2000, apart from 2012, when Boris Johnson ran for a second time.
He has now revealed that he was, in fact, the first Conservative to declare his interest in running in the 2028 race, having done so on the day Sir Sadiq Khan won his third term in office.
“I’ve always had a set of principles that I think work for London, and so I put my name forward,” Boff told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) at the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Birmingham.
“It’s up to the Conservative Party if I should be the person to lead them in London. I make a simple promise – if you select me, I will win. I won’t just do well, I will win, because I know London, inner and outer boroughs, the suburbs, extraordinarily well.
“This is just a choice for the party. They can either have a winner who has got tailored policies for London to meet the needs of Londoners, which are different from other parts of the country. Or they can go somebody who’s going to do a good job of getting as many Tory votes as possible. But it’s not core votes, it’s more votes that we need.
“I’ve done every contest there’s been. We now definitely need a change [from Sir Sadiq].
“There’s an opening here for a candidate who can appeal to not just Conservative voters, not just to Reform voters, but also to those Labour voters, many of whom [we] share some instincts with.
“You’ll find many people feeling they’ve been shut out of the planning process. Local authorities are having less and less say over what goes up in their areas and what happens in their areas.
“We’ve now had 10 years of [the current Mayor] and I think people are starting to get tired of that.”
Boff is known in City Hall for being willing to challenge his own national party on issues that impact London.
He was nominated as chair of the London Assembly for the third time in May. Outgoing chair Lord Len Duvall, a Labour Assembly Member, nominated Boff, saying he “thinks out of the box and challenges his own group to think about issues raised in this chamber”.
City Hall Conservatives group leader Susan Hall seconded the motion, saying the assembly was “very lucky” to have the 68-year-old, despite the occasional rebellion.
Boff was famously marched out of the Conservative Party Conference in 2023 after heckling then Home Secretary Suella Braverman. This is a philosophy that the former Hillingdon councillor will take into his campaign.
“I know how Londoners think,” he said. “I know where London is, and I’m not so keen on some of the things that the Conservative Party does nationally.
“We need to tune our message towards having a mayor who speaks for London, not just for a party. It’s very easy to get our core vote out. But we need more votes – and that means addressing uncomfortable issues.”
This includes contravening the national party message on Heathrow expansion.
On the same day that Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith said the Tories would do “whatever it takes” to boost expansion by backing the third runway, Boff reiterated his opposition to the proposals.
Branding current plans as “unambitious” and “mealy mouthed”, he said Kemi Badenoch’s party were wrong to back a move which won’t lead to “real growth”.
Other headline policies include changing the current grant structure for housebuilding to encourage the construction of more family-sized homes, and reforming the London Plan to promote lower density properties instead of tower blocks.
Boff says he has a “thoroughly worked-on programme” which he has been tinkering with over two decades, and which will be released soon.
“It works for London, it works for the boroughs,” he hints. “It means the boroughs get more control over what they’re doing. It means that the taxpayers in London pay a little less [to City Hall].
“And it also means the GLA responds to what local people actually want rather than just issuing press releases.”
Boff will be up against former Home Secretary James Cleverly, Westminster City Councillor Festus Akinbusoye and businessman Alex Challoner.
The party is yet to confirm the final list, after which a selection panel will whittle the choices down to a final two.
After a series of hustings, party members will then vote for their chosen candidate. It is believed that this will happen before the end of the year.
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