Prior to his election as a London Assembly Member, Copley worked for Searchlight, the anti-racist and anti-fascist organisation. He has also worked as the local organiser and agent for the Labour Party in Camden and on Ken Livingstone's successful campaign to be selected as Labour's candidate for the 2012 London mayoral election. Copley was Chair of London Young Labour from 2008 to 2009 and sat as London representative on the Young Labour National Committee from 2008 to 2011. In 2010, he stood for election to Camden Council in the Haverstock ward. He was placed fourth on Labour's assembly list for the 2012 London Assembly election and was elected as a London-wide assembly member in May 2012 after Labour received 41.1% of the vote. He remains the youngest person ever to be elected to the London Assembly. He was re-elected as a Londonwide member in 2016 as the second-placed candidate on Labour's Londonwide list. Copley was reselected as one of Labour's Londonwide list candidates for the 2020 London Assembly election, though he was appointed to his Deputy Mayoral role and thus dropped out of the race before the order of candidates was determined. Following his appointment as Deputy Mayor for Housing and Residential Development, Copley resigned as a member of the Assembly and was replaced by the fifth member on Labour's 2016 Londonwide list, Alison Moore. Copley most recently served as Chair of the Assembly's Housing Committee, and also sat on the Transport, Confirmation Hearings, GLA Oversight and Planning committees. He has been strongly critical of the failed Garden Bridge project, campaigned for greater transparency on the issue and served as Chair of the Assembly's Garden Bridge Working Group. Following his election to the London Assembly, he was made a patron of LGBT Labour. He is on the boards of the New Diorama Theatre in Camden and the humanist charity Humanists UK, formerly the British Humanist Association. As well as the Labour party, Copley is also a member of the Co-operative party, the Fabian Society and both Unite the Union and the GMB. He is a republican and a member of Republic, the campaign for an elected head of state.
Campaigns and activities
Copley repeatedly challenged previous Mayor of LondonBoris Johnson over housing issues in London. He has called for the introduction of a German model of rent regulation to be introduced to regulate rents in the private rented sector. In January 2013 he called for an investigation into allegations of blacklisting on the Crossrail project, claiming the practice was "almost endemic" in the construction industry. In July 2013 Copley undertook a rapporteurship into the challenges facing small theatres in London. This resulted in the Centre Stage report. In 2016, he led a successful motion for the London Assembly to oppose the Prime Minister's plans to reinstate 100% religiously selective schools, citing evidence that this would harm London's community cohesion and discriminate against poorer families. Copley has campaigned extensively on housing issues including homelessness, and the Right to Buy policy, on which he has produced two reports. The first of these, 'From Right to Buy to Buy to Let', highlighted the large proportion of London council homes sold under the right to buy which end up in the private rented sector and called for sweeping reforms of the scheme. The 2019 follow up report, 'Right to Buy: Wrong for London', focused on the money being spent by London Boroughs renting back their former properties and calledfor the scheme to be abolished entirely in London. In May 2019, he released a report – 'Slums of the Future: Permitted Development conversions in London' on the impact of the extension of permitted development rights whereby developers are able to convert office space to homes without planning oversight. In this report Copley highlighted the poor quality and affordability of these homes and called for an end to Permitted Development rights for any conversions to residential homes.
