“Boris does what’s best for Boris”: Ali Milani on unseating the Prime Minister

Boris Johnson, MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, is now Britain’s Prime Minister. 25-year-old Ali Milani is Labour’s parliamentary candidate in his marginal seat, where the former London mayor has a majority of just 5,034 votes. Milani is hoping to unseat a Prime Minister for the first time since 1906.

We spoke to the PPC on Wednesday evening, shortly after Johnson delivered his first speech as PM. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Boris Johnson is now officially our Prime Minister. How are you feeling about campaigning in the Prime Minister’s backyard?

We’ve been expecting this for a while. Obviously, the prospect of unseating a Prime Minister is huge and exciting. But I’ve always seen this constituency as a battleground of ideas for the country too.

Did you watch his speech earlier tonight? What did you think?

I caught a bit of it. It was the usual incoherent nonsense, full of empty promises. He was trying to fill any gaps in terms of actual ideas with empty optimism. We have optimism too, but also a vision for the country to back it up. His speech was all bluster. And some stuff about genetic modification…

What is the focus of your campaign?

A main focus is that I’m a local candidate. People deserve leaders who understand what it’s like to live like them. I breathe the same air as people in this constituency, I eat the same food. Boris is a terrible politician because he really doesn’t know what it’s like to live like the rest of us. So we’re focussing on the experiences that I have had and the lifestyle I’ve led.

We’ve got a lot of energy behind our campaign. I think people are excited about having a young candidate. People like me were never supposed to become MPs, and people my age don’t often get the chance to be PPCs.

We also have an exciting vision for the country: addressing climate change, working towards a carbon-free economy, the denationalisation of four critical areas, scrapping tuition fees and reintroducing maintenance grants.

There’s some debate over the best way to approach campaigning against Boris Johnson. Is it best to attack his character, expose his lack of grasp on detail or just concentrate on pushing a Labour message?

The best way to counter Boris Johnson is to address the concerns that people have day to day. Most people don’t talk like us: we are in a political bubble. Most people aren’t watching Andrew Marr on Sundays or PMQs during the week. We have to speak to that.

For way too long, we’ve had Farage, Boris and Trump – these people providing very toxic answers to people’s real concerns. We have to address the concerns of people in their day-to-day lives. We have to connect.

But we do need to expose Boris for what he is. He’s a charlatan. Boris does what’s best for Boris. And the difference is amazing: someone like Boris has never experienced the stuff we have experienced. So we are campaigning based on stories, emotion and experiences. He is morally unfit for office as well as incompetent, and that needs to be pointed out.

Often when your candidacy gets some exposure, like the Guardian video recently, there are comments on social media about the antisemitic tweets you posted as a teenager. What’s your response to people still concerned about those tweets?

I will continue to apologise without any buts. And it’s right for people to ask me the question. For me, it’s about not just about apologising either, but being proactive and reaching out to the Jewish community. If there’s more that I should be doing, then I’m happy to listen. If Jewish communities want me to do more, I’m happy to do that.

This is an emotional topic for me because I have experienced so much racism. I’ve had death threats, and my family has had threats to their safety. The issue of racism is one that is very personal to me and I’m extremely passionate about it.

We need to unveil a real political education programme. How many of us used comments like ‘gay’ in common rooms and the playground without fully comprehending the impact that had on others and how wrong those comments were?

But like I said, on those comments, I never run from them. I’ve always tried to be sincere and honest about where they came from and I apologise for them now. If there are more steps that people want me to take, I’m happy to do so.

What are the local Tories doing? Are they going canvassing?

I haven’t seen anything. The arrogance of Conservatives never ceases to amaze me. I think they still haven’t taken us fully seriously, despite the polling. The feeling on the ground is very much that we can absolutely take this seat. But they are so preoccupied with No10, and some of the local Tories with whether they’re going to catch the limelight off of Boris, that they haven’t been out.

This seat has always been a comfort seat, in which people are always going to vote Tory so they’ve done no work here for generations – certainly since Boris has been here. We haven’t seen them out at all. The running joke I have here is that if you drop Boris at the end of someone’s street, he wouldn’t be able to find his way home.

Are you expecting an early election? 

Yes, October, November time.

How do you think it’s going to happen?

I just don’t see how Boris is going to renegotiate a deal and pass it through the Commons. Breaking up a union resulting from a 40-year process of integration takes time. He has come in and said, ‘no, we’re going to leave on October 31st’.

But there’s clearly no majority in parliament for no deal and clearly no majority in parliament for Theresa May’s deal, which I suspect he’s just going to rehash. I suspect we’re going to get a general election because when there’s no majority for anything in parliament, we need a new parliament.

Do you think there’s any chance that he could be moved to a safe seat?

No, for two reasons. One is that it would be supremely embarrassing for the Prime Minister to run away with his tail between his legs. Given that it’s probably going to be a snap election, I think it would be too humiliating for Boris personally and for the Tories locally.

Secondly, because they’re so out of touch, they’re never out or talking to people beyond Conservative Party members, I  don’t think they realise the groundswell here. We’ve got polling and data that other people have done, like the Financial Times and others who are clearly seeing that there is big movement in this constituency. But they’re so caught in Boris becoming PM, I don’t think they’ll see it coming. It’ll be a nice surprise when I’m stood next to him and the returning officer reads out a Labour gain in Uxbridge.

What are the next big events coming up that LabourList readers could join in Uxbridge?

We’ll have another big Unseat event in August. We have canvassing and leafletting sessions every week. We have all sorts of community events that we do where I will go and do Q&A sessions all the time. We’re planning a charity football tournament, trying to get more young people registered to vote. We’ve got all sorts of things come up.

Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?

One of the big things is that people like me, from working-class backgrounds, don’t really have the financial resources to pump into their campaign. I don’t think people realise how financially difficult these campaigns are. Given that we don’t have the big donors backing us, we’ve launched a crowdfund, so if anyone can support us – even if it’s a couple of quid – that goes a long way in us printing our leaflets and getting our events done.

You can sign up to Labour’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip campaign by going to alimilani.com.