Freddie Downing on the Rwanda scheme, trans rights and policing

As part of The Slice Tower Hamlets’ coverage of the 2024 general election, we interview Freddie Downing, Conservative Party candidate for Poplar and Limehouse.

Freddie Downing is the Conservative Party candidate for Poplar and Limehouse. We spoke to him about the threat of Reform UK, the importance of policing and changes to disability benefits.

One of Downing’s earliest memories is waking up the morning after the 2001 general election when Tony Blair won his second landslide victory. Downing woke up asking if William Hague, the then Tory party leader, had won. Since then, he’s been a Conservative and first joined the party when Michael Howard was leader of the party in 2003. 

‘I’m a Conservative because of what I learned from my parents,’ he says. ‘To be independent; to earn what you have; and with hard work and determination, you can achieve almost anything.’

Growing up in Harrogate, Downing attended his local comprehensive before completing his history undergraduate degree at the University of Cambridge and a history master’s at the University of Oxford. 

After working at Deloitte UK for five years as a tax manager, Downing was seconded to be the secretariat to the Race Equality Commission at the Legatum Institute, a London-based think tank, in June 2021. 

Through his work at the commission, Downing became more interested in politics and realised it was the best platform to deliver meaningful change. In early 2022, he became senior parliamentary assistant to Lucy Frazer, the former Conservative MP for South East Cambridgeshire.

He was the Conservative Party candidate for the London Assembly constituency of City and East in the May 2024 election, won by Unmesh Desai of the Labour Party. 

As vice-chair of LGBT+ Conservatives, a campaigner against Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s Blackwall Tunnel Tax, and an advocate for the re-opening of Limehouse police station, many issues are close to Downing’s heart. We asked him what he’d do for local people in his constituency if elected. 

For more of our general election coverage, read our interview with Green Party candidate for Poplar and Limehouse, Nathalie Bienfait