A softly-spoken heckler was removed from the auditorium hosting Suella Bravmerman’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference, despite causing next-to-no disruption.
Andrew Boff, who is a Tory member of the London Assembly, was escorted out after quietly saying “this is trash”.
ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston said: “This is not a great look for the party of free speech. I’ve seen heckling in my time and I am not sure this meets the threshold.”
The home secretary responded to Mr Boff’s removal on Twitter, saying his “heckles were silly but I think he should be forgiven and let back into conference”.
He was approached by officials and police when he heckled Ms Braverman after she said ministers must challenge the “poison” of talk of subjects such as white privilege and gender ideology.
“There’s no such thing as gender ideology,” he added.
After being removed from the conference centre, Mr Boff told ITV News Ms Braverman is a “bully”.
He said: “The home secretary said some things which i found quite objectionable, I consider them bullying, I consider them bullying trans people and the LGBT community.”
He added: “I was born and brought up that when you see a bully you challenge them and that’s what I was doing and I challenged her.”
Speaking to reporters as he was the removed, Mr Boff said: “This home secretary was basically vilifying gay people and trans people by this attack on LGBT ideology, or gender ideology. It is fictitious, it is ridiculous.
“It is a signal to people who don’t like people who are LGBT+ people.”
He added: “Words like that in the forum of the party that I love need to be challenged.”
Asked if he had planned the protest in advance, he said he attended the speech to “hear from her own mouth what her views were”.
As he was removed, he complained about the “trash” language Ms Braverman had used in her address.
“It is making our Conservative Party look transphobic and homophobic,” he told reporters.
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