Top London Tory quits the party after 53 years over a Badenoch rule barring ECHR supporters from the mayoral race

Andrew Boff, chairman of the London Assembly, called his exclusion "extraordinary and profoundly disappointing" and will now sit as an independent. He joined the Conservatives in 1973. He insisted the convention is no "left-wing project" but a "safeguard against arbitrary government" that Churchill-era Tories helped create. "I believe the party has abandoned some of its own" principles, he said.

Kemi Badenoch said in 2025 that ECHR backers "cannot stand as a Conservative candidate".

City Hall Tory Susan Hall "deeply regrets" the exit but backs leaving the ECHR.

Frontrunner Sir James Cleverly doubts that quitting the ECHR is a border "silver bullet".