Hackney mayoral candidate cleared over BNP complaint
Andrew Boff, London Assembly Member and Conservative candidate for Mayor of Hackney
Hackney mayoral candidate Andrew Boff has been cleared by the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) Standards Board following a complaint about remarks he made about the British National Party and its members.
Andrew Boff, who is a Member of the London Assembly’s Conservative Group, highlighted the issue of the BNP’s intention to stand Mayoral candidates in Hackney and a number of other London boroughs at Mayor’s Question Time last month.
Boff said, “I hope that the various organisations are alert to the effect that the BNP will have of the British National Party deciding to stand for the mayoralties of Hackney, Lewisham and Newham, and that the communities are alert to any of the issues that may take place amongst the communities in these particular areas.
“I view their decision with some trepidation, because where they go, there are always problems.”
But Richard Barnbrook, BNP London Assembly Member, made an official complaint, saying that Andrew Boff was claiming that “BNP members and associates are problematic by nature.”
The GLA Standards Board ruled that Boff made the comment in his official capacity (as a London-wide Assembly Member).
Andrew Boff said, “I’m pleased that the [GLA] Standards Board has refused to allow the BNP to silence me and that my comments about them are vindicated.
“The good community relations that exist in Hackney will only be damaged by the the BNP’s decision to stand a candidate for Mayor.
“They get their votes by stirring up the kind of hatred which can lead to violent attacks. Hackney residents and the authorities need to be reminded of that I want as many people as possible to vote on Thursday 6 May to show the BNP that they are not welcome here.”
More about Andrew Boff.
“The good community relations that exist in Hackney will only be damaged by the the BNP’s decision to stand a candidate for Mayor.
“They get their votes by stirring up the kind of hatred which can lead to violent attacks. Hackney residents and the authorities need to be reminded of that I want as many people as possible to vote on Thursday 6 May to show the BNP that they are not welcome here.”
Good for you Andrew but I think your concern and mine is probably for the BNP activists themselves and not the other way round because, in Hackney, you are very right, community relations are hard won and fiercely defended, and that the real hatred stirred up and the potential for violence this causes is completely reserved for the BNP. Primacy does go to the democratic franchise and to electoral participation but then civic engagement will sometimes justly extend to the requirement for direct action. My worry is for the people in London with active fascists representing them and what they have to put up with year in year out.
Barnbrook is not a MEP, thank goodness.
2 is enough.
Thanks, Andy Cox – you’re right: we’ve amended the story accordingly. – Ed.
Well said.
But surely Hackney residents and the authorities need to be reminded that the Conservative Party has chosen as its partner – at the European level – a […] homophobic and anti-Semitic Polish party, which gets its votes by stirring up the kind of hatred which can lead to violent attacks.
Don’t you want as many people as possible to vote on Thursday 6 May to show that those types of [people] are not welcome here too?
I wonder how Andrew Boff feels about standing shoulder to shoulder with not only […] Michal Kaminski, the Polish politician who leads the new Conservatives and Reformists grouping in which the Tories sit, or with colleagues from its Latvian affiliate, the For Fatherland and Freedom party?
Considering the crime levels we have in Hackney I would hardly say we have a good community or community relations. Does Boff really live here?