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3 hours ago
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Kemi Badenoch has said the UK is getting poorer and people should be honest that it is failing to compete with the rest of the world.
In a speech billed as the Conservative leader confronting the party’s mistakes in government, Badenoch failed to offer a specific apology but said that the party had offered policy without a plan, including on Brexit and net zero.
“We are all getting poorer,” she said, speaking to journalists and MPs in what was touted as her first keynote speech. “Politicians across all parties have not told the truth about this and instead keep prescribing quick fixes that are actually making things worse.”
Badenoch did not say that was the fault of the Conservatives, but was “broader than one party, one leader, or one period of government”. She said that many had “not been honest with the public”.
“We are a great country, but we’ve lost our way,” she said. “The truth is that Britain is failing to compete in a world that is changing. And it is not working for its citizens, certainly not the way it used to.”
But in questions after the speech, Badenoch rejected the possibility of a merger with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. “Nigel Farage says he wants to destroy the Conservative party. Why on earth would we merge with that?”
Badenoch said that the Conservative party under Theresa May and Boris Johnson had failed to plan for Brexit and had promised low immigration when the numbers were rising.
“I will acknowledge the Conservative party made mistakes,” Badenoch said. “We were making announcements without proper plans. We announced that we would leave the European Union before we had a plan for growth outside the EU.
“We made it the law that we would deliver net zero by 2050, and only then did we start thinking about how we would do that. We announced year after year that we would lower immigration but despite our efforts immigration kept going up.”
Badenoch said she had seen Labour make many of the same mistakes early in government, including the cut to winter fuel allowance and the inheritance tax on farmers.
She said Treasury officials had presented those ideas to Tory chancellors often and they had been rejected. “The chancellor took them because she has no ideas of her own,” she said.
Responding to the speech, Labour sent a list of 100 mistakes it said Badenoch should apologise for – including court backlogs, prison places, failing on trade deals and record hospital waiting lists.
Labour’s chair, Ellie Reeves, said Badenoch was “in complete denial” and “still can’t bring herself to be honest about the true litany of mistakes the Conservatives made over 14 years of failure in government”.
Badenoch said that she would keep telling the public things that were “not easy to hear” and stop promising easy solutions.
“We think we are rich, but we are living off the inheritance that previous generations left behind. A complacency that Britain will always be wealthy and a refusal to live within our means,” she said.
She said that would require tough decision on issues such as net zero, welfare, disinformation and tech and immigration. “If people arriving don’t want to integrate into British culture, they shouldn’t be here. It is not controversial to say that,” she said.
Badenoch said there had been more discussion in parliament “on Oasis tickets than on our £2.7tn debt pile”.
The Tory leader said her first task was to restore trust and be an effective opposition. “The Conservative party is changing. We are under new leadership we are back in the service of the British people, and we are going to give you your country back,” she said, echoing the slogans of both Labour and Reform.
Asked whether her negative tone was a poor contrast with Farage’s bombast, Badenoch said: “I’m speaking based on where the Conservative party is. We have just suffered our greatest ever defeat. I don’t think the public will start trusting us if I turn up looking like I’m having a great time and everything is fantastic.”
