Tag: Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Comments on the Makeup of Labour MPs

The comments made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, on 31 May 2026.

Incredibly, 90% of the new Labour MPs at the last election came from a trade union, charity or public-sector background. Barely 1/5th of the Cabinet has any private-sector experience. In the Shadow Cabinet, 3/4 of us do. That distinction matters.

The skills Labour MPs have acquired are in lobbying for more funding, campaigning for more benefits or more red tape. Britain needs a new generation of politician.

Only the Conservative Party can build a team for the economic war effort required after Burnham/Starmer have finished this catastrophic experiment. We will need to fix every aspect of our system at once. There will be no kicking decisions into the long grass, only rolling our sleeves up and getting to work.

If you’ve ever thought about a career in politics but decided it was too risky or you wouldn’t fit in, now is your time.…We are looking for people from every walk of life who know how to get stuff done.

In return, I will make politics work for you.

Britain does not lack talent. It lacks a system that draws that talent into public life. Join my team and help us get Britain working again.

May 31, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Comments on Doctor Strikes

The comments made by Kemi Badenoch on 28 May 2026.

If the Conservatives were in power, these strikes simply wouldn’t be happening.

That’s because we’ll add doctors to the list of professions banned from striking. Just like police officers and members of the Armed Forces.

Our health should never be held ransom by unions.

May 30, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Comments on Drilling Oil

The comments made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, on 28 May 2026.

Ed Miliband’s ideological shut-down of Scotland’s North Sea Oil & Gas Industry is going to hand Vladimir Putin £1 billion in oil revenue. Our own oil is right there, under the North Sea. All we need to do is drill it. Only the Conservatives will get Britain drilling.

May 28, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Speech on the Loyal Address

The speech made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 13 May 2026.

This King’s Speech is taking place against the most extraordinary backdrop. We knew that the carriages were booked, that the horses were ready and that the King was coming, but would we have a Prime Minister? It is such an honour to be the Leader of the Opposition who gets to respond today. May I start by congratulating the proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address on their excellent speeches? I also congratulate the Whips on finding two Back Benchers prepared to support the Prime Minister at this time.

The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) gave a moving and funny speech. I especially appreciated her comments about black and brown faces on TV—or, as my children say, “Oh look, it’s mummy again.” She only touched lightly on the fact that she is someone who has faced one of the most challenging childhoods imaginable, yet through the strength of her character, has made it to this place. She is made of tough stuff, and that is something we need more of in this House. Anyone who can boast of chewing up and spitting out George Galloway in an election is clearly formidable.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) on successfully delivering a humorous and warm-hearted speech. As he noted, he is my constituency neighbour. He ran the London marathon last month, raising money for the St Clare hospice, which cares for his constituents and mine, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for doing that. I have become a big fan of his after listening to his speech, especially as he was so generous in his comments about the Harlow Conservatives’ successful election campaign and my councillors’ outstanding work on regenerating the town centre. If things on his side of the House are getting a bit much, he would be very welcome to cross the Floor and help the Conservatives carry on that work.

I think we can say that the proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address have upheld the best traditions of the House.

I would of course like to pay tribute to His Majesty the King. His Majesty has served through a period of great personal difficulty, and throughout it he has exemplified the virtues of grace, dignity, humour, modesty and resolve in the face of adversity—virtues that were on full display during his hugely successful state visit to the United States. I am sure the whole House will have admired his skilful speech to Congress. It was a speech full of the wisdom and courage needed for our times. Of course, we would never have got to hear it if we had listened to some people in this House who called for the King’s visit to be cancelled—thank goodness no one listens to the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

As for the Prime Minister, when he was young, he called for the end of the monarchy, so I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has seen the error of his ways, because previous King Charleses took a much dimmer view of that kind of thing. I am only sorry that this new-found appreciation of the monarchy and our country’s traditions has come too late, because this is the first parliamentary Session ever without the hereditary peers. Their departure will be keenly felt and our Parliament will be poorer for it, especially when we consider some of the people Labour has been replacing them with—people who have already had the Whip removed before they have even taken their seats.

Mr Speaker, I know that the convention is for this to be a light-hearted debate, but as I have already said, this is a highly unusual moment. The Prime Minister is in office but not in power. Everyone is trying to pretend it is all right—it is not all right. In the past 48 hours, nearly 100 Labour MPs have called for the Prime Minister to resign. Four Ministers have quit. It is clear that his authority has gone and that he will not be able to deliver what little there is in this King’s Speech. This is a Government less than two years in office who have already run out of ideas and run out of road.

So how did we get here? There is a great line in the musical “Hamilton”: “Winning is easy, governing is harder”. Everything that has gone wrong in Labour’s first two years comes back to one problem: it came into office with no plan. It did not understand the difference between winning an election and governing a country. It was very easy to make promises in opposition—promises to freeze council tax, promises to take £300 off energy bills, promises to the WASPI women. Hundreds of Labour MPs took photos with them to post on their Facebook pages, websites and election leaflets, but at no point did they bother to think how they would deliver any of it.

Labour did not spend its time in opposition thinking deeply about the country’s problems. It assumed that governing in the 2020s would be like governing in the 1990s, but it is not. Britain is facing new structural problems. We have an ageing—[Interruption.] Labour Members all shout at me; I know they cannot wait to get back to their plotting, but it is quite important that we hear what is being said. We have an ageing population, a falling birth rate and a welfare bill that is spiralling out of control. We have an information revolution in the shape of AI that threatens to unravel the world of work as we know it, and the cost of energy is driving industry out of the country.

Labour was taken by surprise that we are living in a more competitive and increasingly hostile world. Its manifesto was just a set of misleading promises. It promised no new taxes on working people—fail. It promised to crack down on illegal immigration—fail. It promised to tread more lightly on people’s lives—epic fail. It made promises without knowing how anything works.

Let us look at housing. Just after Labour took office, when I was shadow Housing Secretary, I stood at this Dispatch Box and warned the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), that she had been stitched up and that the 1.5 million new homes Labour promised had been hung like a millstone around her neck. I knew the Government would not be able to meet that target, because they did not understand why more houses were not being built. Sure enough, they are already more than a third down on their target, and well behind what we delivered. Of course, in the end it was not 1.5 million homes that did for the former Deputy Prime Minister; it took just one flat in Brighton to bring her down.

It is so obvious—[Interruption.] I know Labour Members don’t want to hear it. Look at them—they are so arrogant that they want to lead our country, but they cannot even lead a coup. It is so obvious that they cannot handle being in government. They hate the responsibility, and they hate having to take tough decisions. They prefer scratching the itches that they had in opposition: giving inflation-busting pay rises to the unions, with 28% for the doctors who, after nearly two years, are still striking, and handing out more benefits to the only people who will still vote for them, because Labour Members do not understand that poverty is created not by a lack of benefits but by a failing economy.

We spent the last Session listening to Labour MPs telling us how great everything was going, and no doubt we will hear lots of grandstanding speeches this week, telling us what a fantastic job they did. How absurd, given the number of them demanding that the Prime Minister stands down. We counted, Mr Speaker, and there were 24 U-turns in that first parliamentary Session: winter fuel, family farms, grooming gangs, welfare reform, social media for under-16s, day one workers’ rights—the list goes on and on. Every single one of those U-turns had at its core a single issue: the Prime Minister’s total lack of judgment. This is a man who, faced with a crisis of vision, charisma and electoral success, sent for Gordon Brown.

Leadership is about having a vision for this country, and the courage to take difficult decisions, persuading your party that those difficult decisions will pay off in time, and taking responsibility for your mistakes. The Prime Minister has failed on every count. We have had pillars, promises, four-point plans, five-point plans, missions, with none of it achieving anything—reset after reset after reset. Even if the Prime Minister lasts long enough in office for this Loyal Address to be delivered, the Bills announced today do not remotely come close to what the country needs—[Interruption.] Labour Members are chuntering, Mr Speaker, but not a single one of them dares to intervene on me.

I welcome the Government’s ongoing support for Ukraine and their commitment to NATO. In this increasingly dangerous world, it is more important than ever that we stand with our allies in the fight against tyranny. I also commend the Government for their commitment to speed up the delivery of infrastructure such as new nuclear. Too many Governments have been frustrated in their attempts to deliver nuclear projects quickly, and we will support efforts to make the process simpler, faster and cheaper.

I also want to be generous to the Home Secretary, because I see that she is trying to do something about illegal immigration. The elephant in the room is that she almost certainly will not be Home Secretary for much longer, and sadly, no one else in the Labour party looks remotely interested in bringing down illegal immigration. The rest of the offerings in the King’s Speech make it clear that Labour Members have learned no lessons from their mistakes in government so far. All we have is a load of reannounced policies: hounding our brave veterans through the courts; legislating for digital ID—a policy they told us they had dropped; and banning trail hunting, which is just more class war that makes no one’s life better. Scrapping NHS England is something the Prime Minister announced 14 months ago—but I suppose the Health Secretary has been a bit distracted lately, hasn’t he? [Interruption.] He’s chuntering now. Why don’t you just do your job? There is no point in him giving me dirty looks; we all know what he has been up to.

Even worse is what is not in the Gracious Speech. There is no defence readiness Bill, because apparently it is not ready. Where are the plans for welfare reform? There are none, because Labour MPs have blocked them. Where is the plan to make savings? There isn’t one, because Labour Members do not know how to make savings; they only know how to spend money—other people’s money. Where is the plan to support businesses? There isn’t one, because they do not understand that it is business that creates growth, not Government. They have no answers on what really matters: the problems that must be solved to get Britain working again.

I do feel very sorry for Labour Back Benchers. [Interruption.] It’s true—I do feel sorry for Labour Back Benchers. They arrived here not that long ago with such high hopes. Some of them, in fact, were so talented that they were made Ministers before ever speaking a word in Parliament. So talented! Although one of them has just resigned; I must not forget that. We have watched their growing horror, day after day and week after week, as this hope descended into total chaos; the dread as they are sent out yet again to defend the indefensible; the injustice of feeling like pariahs in their own constituencies—banned from pubs and banned from hairdressers, which is presumably why all the women on the Government Front Bench have the same hairstyle. We have seen the realisation that their legacy is just going to be—[Interruption.] They can complain as much as they like. I was not expecting this to be comfortable for them. They are the ones who are trying to unseat their Prime Minister; they should face that. We have seen the realisation that their legacy is just going to be breakfast clubs and Peter Mandelson.

Labour MPs have been treated as disposable by their leadership: sacked for backing the two-child benefit cap, sacked for opposing welfare changes, sacked for supporting farmers. The Prime Minister then U-turned on all of them. It must be tough when you take a principled stand and have the Whip removed, only for the Government to confirm six months later that they agreed with you all along. It is no wonder that nearly 100 Labour MPs have now called for the Prime Minister to go. I know that there are another 100 who claim to be supporting him, although some of them did not even know that their name was on that list. When you can only get a quarter of your MPs to publicly back you, the game is up, so the starting gun for the Labour leadership contest has been fired.

Let’s have a look at the runners and riders. We have the former Deputy Prime Minister—she is not here—who has giving up vaping but still has not paid her taxes. We have the Health Secretary, who accidentally sent his takeover plans to No. 10—almost as incompetent as leaving them on the photocopier. And we have the Mayor of Manchester, a self-proclaimed winner who has twice failed to win the Labour leadership, including against the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). As one Labour MP said about all the candidates in this race, and I quote:

“We have to face up to the fact that every single one of them is”—

I apologise, Mr Speaker—

“f****** useless.”

I do feel sorry for the poor Labour MPs who will now be subjected to months of peacocking by leadership candidates while the country is not being governed. I have some advice for whichever of them eventually takes over. Getting to No. 10 is not an award for being in a game show. This is not “Strictly Come Dancing” and, despite appearances, it is not “The Traitors” either. If you are a Housing Secretary who cannot work out her housing taxes, if you are a Health Secretary who can only cut waiting lists by deleting names from them, if you are Gordon Brown’s former Chief Secretary to the Treasury and you think the bond markets are a hoax, I can assure you that being Prime Minister is going to be a lot tougher.

Too many have failed because they thought that winning an election or a leadership contest was the success, but it is not. The work does not end when you get the job; that is when it starts.

It is absolutely preposterous that the Government are here laying out a programme as their Ministers are resigning and a large proportion of the Labour party is saying that the Prime Minister needs to go. The whole thing is totally illogical. Either Labour MPs agree with this agenda—in which case, why are they trying to get rid of the Prime Minister? Or they do not agree with this agenda—in which case, what on earth are we all doing here?

It is time to be brutally honest. The country is angry with the entire political class—all of us here. They are not happy with how we have been doing politics. It is time to get serious.

Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)

The right hon. Lady seeks to lecture us on why everyone is so fed up with the political class, but she is using this opportunity not to lay out what the Conservatives would do, but to insult everyone on the Labour Benches. Surely that is not the way to proceed.

Mrs Badenoch

Oh, I am not done yet; there is plenty more to come.

The right hon. Lady says that she is getting a lecture, and she is. We are all getting a lecture, because we are legislators of the United Kingdom. We were sent here to fix difficult things, not to focus on our personal hobby horses, ranging from the petty to the puerile.

Labour Members do not need to be scared of the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)—I am not. He is not the cause of Britain’s problems—[Hon. Members: “You are!”] Labour Members are still delusional. I am sorry to puncture the bubble, but I am not here to pretend that what is happening is not happening. They can all pretend and live in la-la land, but I am going to speak the truth to them. The hon. Member for Clacton is not the cause of Britain’s problems; he is a symptom of the failure of the political class to focus on what matters. If you fix the problems that people care about, he goes away.

Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)

The right hon. Lady says that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is a symptom of the problem, but does she agree that she and he have something in common? She very loosely agreed that we should race with America into war in Iran, then just a week later she thought, “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.” Does that not prove why she and he are totally unsuitable for speaking from the Government side of the House?

Mrs Badenoch

That was a nice try, but it is not going to work.

You cannot solve the problems of the country unless you have a plan to fix the civil service, the regulators, the legislative straitjacket and the powers transferred from Parliament to the courts. Unless you fix the structures of Government, everyone will continue to fail. Britain is not ungovernable and it is not broken.

The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) asked what the plan was. We have published an alternative King’s Speech, and the reason is that we need to take tough decisions to get the country out of the mess we are in by cutting wasteful spending, funding defence, securing our borders and reducing the cost of energy. If you want to bring down bills for families and bring industry back to this country, you need a plan to scrap the net zero legislation that is strangling industry and making energy costs higher. That is why we are proposing a cheap energy Bill to do just that.

If you want businesses to employ people, you need to stop crushing them with thousands of pages of employment laws and stop handing power to the unions. You need to stop hammering businesses with tax rises. That is why we are proposing a get Britain working Bill, which would scrap laws that are no longer fit for purpose and are killing jobs.

If you want to get a grip on illegal immigration and remove foreign criminals from the country, you must have a plan to leave the European convention on human rights and repeal the Human Rights Act. Efforts to get control of our borders have been frustrated because power has been taken out of the hands of Ministers. We need to bring that power back, so that we do not have murderers staying in our country because the courts stop us from deporting them. Our alternative King’s Speech shows how it can be done, letting the Government, not the courts, decide who comes and goes. Prime Ministers are going to keep running into problems until they deal with activist lawyers and international agreements that tie the Government’s hands against the interests of the British public. [Interruption.] Labour Members are chuntering that this is “boring.” Does someone want to stand up and tell us who they are supporting: the plotters or the PM? I know that is what they really want to get to. They are not interested in hearing what the plan for the country should be, because they are too focused on Labour party problems.

Next, we must reduce welfare spending, which is eating every penny that we generate in income tax and more. We must spend much more on defence. Even former Labour Defence Secretaries are pleading with the Government to do so. That is why we are proposing a sovereign defence fund that will overhaul Britain’s defence industrial base. That is what the alternative could be. The alternative King’s Speech makes difficult choices, because that is what leadership is. We have laid out these plans now because we are more than happy for Labour to take them; they might be our political opponents, but we are all citizens of this country. We recognise the enormous challenges facing Britain. We want to see those problems solved, and so do our constituents.

Time and again, I have offered the Prime Minister support to pass difficult legislation. Time and again, he has turned it down. It might be too late for him now, but it is not too late for his successor. It is time to get serious—it is time to deliver. That is what the British public expect, and it is what the Conservative party will do.

May 13, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Statement Following Local Elections

The statement made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, on 11 May 2026.

It’s rare for political parties to say something nice about their opponents. I doubt the favour will be returned, but I can say that Reform had a good set of local election results, although not as good as they had hoped. They threw the kitchen sink at it, yet went backwards while we went forwards from last year’s locals.

Conservatives had some good successes. No one had expected us to win back Westminster, or hold on in places like Bexley, Broxbourne and Fareham. So, there is everything to play for, but we are rebuilding from a low base and there is a long road ahead.

The alleged attempted murders in Golders Green cast a shadow over this election. People can see the fragmentation, not just in our politics as voters retreat into tribes, but in the importation of foreign conflicts, grievances and values into British public life.

It is because we are sticking to our values – on integration, on the economy, on our national security – that the green shoots of Conservative recovery are starting to be seen.

Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, East and West Sussex, however, were painful losses. Voters who were still sceptical about us and loathe Labour had a free hit voting Reform, knowing the county councils will be abolished next year. Trust, easily lost, is harder to regain, and former Conservative voters in those places were entitled to send us a message.

In the areas where voters wanted to register anger, Reform was often the vehicle. But where they wanted something protected, fixed or delivered, they looked again at the Conservatives.

Just look at Harlow. Reform expected to take all 11 seats. They got zero. In Bromley, Conservative defectors who had gone to Reform even lost their seats. Why? Because these Conservative councils have visibly delivered, investing in the town centre and keeping council tax low.

This was the same message I heard everywhere I went across the country, from Aberdeen to the Solent. Where voters wanted practical solutions and delivery, not just angry protest, where local Conservatives had clear plans and a record of work, Reform looked like wreckers rather than people who could run things, and voters chose the serious governing option.

This is now our way ahead: be a proper Conservative Party. Do not talk Right while governing Left. Be competent and show delivery and we will earn back your trust.

Reform boasted that May 7 would be the day they killed off the Conservative Party and we’d cease to be a national party. Hubris.

The figures tell the real story. Last local elections, Reform was on 32 per cent support nationally and the Conservatives on just 18 per cent. This year, we rose to 20 per cent and second place nationally, while Reform fell back to 27 per cent. It is still a difficult position for us, but while Reform may be ahead, they are going backwards and we are marching forwards.

Reform said at the start of the year that they intended to empty their bank accounts, and it certainly looks as if they did. A blizzard of expensive letters and leaflets, postcode lottery giveaways to Reform party members and other gimmicks have likely burned through £7m-£8m on these elections.

That’s about ten times what most parties would have spent. If they need to spray that much money at local elections and still fall back, why would anyone trust them to be careful with taxpayers’ money?

Conservatives have been careful with our members’ money and our donors’ money, because we know every pound matters.

The next election will not be decided by who can sound angriest. Reform has the same diagnosis on issues like immigration as the Conservatives. But on the economy, welfare, defence, education and health, they still haven’t quite worked out what they think or what to do. Britain does not need a louder opposition. It needs a serious government.

That is why those on the Right tempted by Reform should be clear-eyed. Reform is not a conservative party in the usual sense. It is not offering coherent centre-Right government, rooted in fiscal responsibility, strong institutions, personal freedom and clear plans.

Reform promises different things to different voters. This election, they have won more Left-wing votes from Labour than Right-wing votes from the Conservatives. We should all ask which voters they will choose if they get into government?

The Conservative Party is in the business of providing solutions. We know where we went wrong and we are not just demanding trust back as if the last 14 years did not happen.

But anger alone will not secure the borders, grow the economy, reduce bills, protect green spaces, fix welfare, back business or rebuild trust in government. That takes serious people, serious plans and the discipline to deliver them.
It’s why, despite the setbacks, I am encouraged by our results this week. The Conservative Party is rebuilding steadily, seriously and with purpose. We are not asking people to forget the past but to judge us by what we do next.

May 11, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Speech on Security Vetting

The speech made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 20 April 2026.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. His reputation is at stake, and everyone is watching, so it is finally time for the truth.

Earlier today, Downing Street admitted that the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House. The Prime Minister has chosen not to repeat that from the Dispatch Box. I remind him that, under the ministerial code, he has a duty to correct the record at the earliest opportunity. The Prime Minister says he only found out on Tuesday that Peter Mandelson failed the security vetting. The earliest opportunity to correct the record was Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday, almost a week ago. This is a breach of the ministerial code. Under that code, he is bound to be as open as possible with Parliament and the public in answering questions today, so let me start with what we do know.

We know the Prime Minister personally appointed Peter Mandelson to be our ambassador to the United States. We know that Mandelson had a close relationship with a convicted paedophile. We know that he had concerning links with Russia and China—links that had already raised red flags. We know that the Prime Minister announced the appointment before vetting was complete—an extraordinary and unprecedented step for the role of US ambassador.

The Prime Minister says that it was “usual” because it was a political appointment, so I remind him, and the rest of the Labour Front Bench who are heckling, that Peter Mandelson was a politician who had been sacked twice from Government for lying. That meant he should have gone through the full security process. We also know that when Peter Mandelson failed the security vetting, he was allowed to continue in the role with access to top secret intelligence and security information. This goes beyond propriety and ethics; this is a matter of national security.

Let me turn to what we do not know. We still do not know exactly why Peter Mandelson failed that vetting. We do not know what risks our country was exposed to. We do not know how it is possible that the Prime Minister said repeatedly that this was a failure of vetting, went on television and said things that were blatantly incorrect, and not a single adviser or official told him that what he was saying was not true. At every turn, with every explanation, the Government story has become murkier and more contradictory. It is time for the truth.

There are too many questions to ask in the allotted time, so I will ask the Prime Minister just six. I have taken the unprecedented step of providing these questions to the Prime Minister in advance, so he has them in front of him. I have asked for these questions to be put online for the public. They and I expect him to answer.

The Prime Minister appointed a national security risk to our most sensitive diplomatic post. Let us look at how this happened. The right hon. and learned Gentleman told me at PMQs in September 2025 that

“full due process was followed”—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 859.]

in this appointment. We now know that in November 2024, Lord Case, the then Cabinet Secretary, told him that this process required security vetting to be done before the appointment. He did not mention any of what Lord Case said in his statement earlier. First, does the Prime Minister accept that when he said on the Floor of the House that “full due process was followed”, that was not true?

Secondly, on 11 September last year, journalists asked his director of communications if it was true that Mandelson had failed security vetting. These allegations were on the front page of a national newspaper, and yet No. 10 did not deny the story—why?

Thirdly, will the Prime Minister repeat at the Dispatch Box his words from last week: that no one in No. 10 was aware before Tuesday that Mandelson had failed his vetting?

Fourthly, the Prime Minister says he is furious that he was not told the recommendations of the vetting, yet on 16 September, a Foreign Office Minister told Parliament that

“the national security vetting process is rightly independent of Ministers, who are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome.”—[Official Report, 16 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 1387.]

That was the Government’s stated process, so why is the Prime Minister so furious that it was followed?

Fifthly, on 4 February 2026, the Prime Minister told me from the Dispatch Box that the security vetting that Mandelson had received had revealed his relationship with Epstein. How could the Prime Minister say that if he had not seen the security vetting?

Finally, Sistema is a Russian defence company that is closely linked to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Was the Prime Minister aware before the appointment that Peter Mandelson had remained a director of that company long after Russia’s invasion of Crimea?

Everyone makes mistakes. It is how a leader faces up to those mistakes that shows their character. Instead of taking responsibility for the decisions he made, the Prime Minister has thrown his staff and his officials under the bus. This is a man who once said,

“I will carry the can for mistakes of any organisation I lead.”

Instead, he has sacked his Cabinet Secretary, he has sacked his director of communications, he has sacked his chief of staff, and he has now sacked the permanent secretary of the Foreign Office. All those people were fired for a decision that he made.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman’s defence is that he, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, is so lacking in curiosity that he chose to ask no questions about the vetting process, no questions about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein and no questions about the security risk that Mandelson posed. Apparently, he did not even speak to Peter Mandelson before his appointment. It does not appear that he asked any questions at all. Why? Because he did not want to know. He had taken the risk and chosen his man, and Whitehall had to follow.

It is the duty of the Prime Minister to ensure that he is telling the truth—or does the ministerial code not apply to him? I am only holding the Prime Minister to the same standard to which he held others. On 26 January 2022, he said from this Dispatch Box to a previous Prime Minister:

“If he misled Parliament, he must resign.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2022; Vol. 707, c. 994.]

Does he stand by those words, or is there one rule for him and another for everyone else?

April 20, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Speech on the Middle East

The speech made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 13 April 2026.

I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement, and I would like to pay tribute to our brave servicemen and women serving in the middle east right now.

The Prime Minister is right that Britain did not start this war, but whether we like it or not, we are impacted by it, and this is likely to get worse. The cost of borrowing has jumped, and petrol prices are climbing. Inflation is rising, and living standards are falling. It is time to take decisive action in our national interest. Britain must focus on what is in our power to protect British citizens today. First, we must rapidly solve the energy crisis that this war has caused in our country. Secondly, we must make sure that Britain is ready to defend herself in this new age.

A nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to the UK. We should be in no doubt whose side we are on in this war: our allies in the middle east and the United States. I welcome the Prime Minister meeting some of those allies, and I welcome his support for diplomatic efforts and military planning to restore freedom of navigation in the region, but we will need to go further than just talking. He says that Britain stands ready to play our part, but we can all see that we were not ready for this situation.

Here is what we need to do now. First, we must take rapid action to increase our energy security and keep bills down, not just until July but longer than that—permanently. Britain is particularly vulnerable to energy price shocks because we are killing domestic oil and gas production in the North sea. Labour’s policy of more expensive energy and de-industrialisation at this time of crisis is dangerous and irresponsible. It is also harming the defence industry. We must start drilling our own oil and gas in the North sea, grant licences for drilling in the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields, and restore British production before it is too late. The Prime Minister says that this will not impact international prices, but this is about more than international prices. This is about the domestic supply, especially of gas, all of which is used in this country. Supply matters.

Furthermore, the Government must cancel the proposed rise in fuel duty. Hiking taxes on motorists for the first time in 15 years, while prices are surging, is a disgraceful decision. If Britain is to be a stronger country, it needs a stronger economy—not one that is being hammered by the highest energy prices in the developed world. Will the Prime Minister grant those oil and gas licences and scrap the rise in fuel duty? I know that he will say that it is the Energy Secretary’s job to do that, but the Energy Secretary is not the Prime Minister. He is, so he can instruct the Energy Secretary to grant those licences.

Secondly, to be ready, Britain must be able to defend herself, and that means we must be ready for these situations before they happen. France and Greece—[Interruption.] I do not know why Labour Members are laughing. I am surprised, because last time I checked, France and Greece sent ships to protect our bases in Cyprus while our destroyer was stuck in Portsmouth. It was a national embarrassment—on Labour’s shoulders—and it should never happen again.

We need no further evidence that we are living in a more dangerous world than a decade ago. I am sure Labour MPs will try to think of a way to make this my fault. [Interruption.] Yes, I know, it is preposterous, the historical illiteracy on the Labour Benches, but let me remind them that Governments of all colours—including those guys on the Liberal Democrat Benches—spent the peace dividend from 1989, when the Berlin wall fell, until the Ukraine war. When that war came, the Conservative Government responded rapidly and unequivocally. We did not have anything stuck in Portsmouth when Ukraine was invaded. We trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and equipped them with our missiles.

We increased defence spending every year after the Ukraine war started, but the world has since become even more dangerous. Every serious person, especially in the military, agrees that Britain must now find a way to spend 3% of GDP on defence by the end of this Parliament. After the election, many of the plans for spending were paused for Labour’s strategic defence review. Nine months after its publication, there is still no defence investment plan that explains how we will fund this. The defence readiness Bill is also nowhere to be seen. The question is not whether we need to increase defence spending, but what tough choices we must make to do so. That is what is missing from the Government’s plan. They have a plan for welfare spending until 2031, but no plans for defence spending.

I say to the Prime Minister: let us put party interests aside—[Interruption.] I am glad that Labour MPs are laughing. I want the public to hear Labour MPs laughing when we say, “Let’s put party interests aside,” so please, keep laughing—go on. I say to the Prime Minister: let us find the money to rearm, let us identify the spending cuts, and if we reach agreement on a joint plan, we can all support those measures in Parliament. Conservatives have already found savings to fund more than £20 billion extra in defence spending. I am willing to work with him to go further.

I am sure the Prime Minister, in his response, will be tempted to misrepresent my position and pretend that I demanded he join in the initial strikes. [Interruption.] Yes—Labour MPs cannot resist the temptation, but he and I both know that is not true, so let us get serious. It is time for us to act decisively in our national interest. Let us show our allies what we bring to the table. Let us show our enemies that we are able and ready to defend ourselves. That requires a defence investment plan, so when exactly will that plan be published, and what action is the Prime Minister taking to find the money to pay for it?

The Prime Minister

I notice that the right hon. Lady’s opening sentence has changed. She used to say, “We didn’t start the war, but like it or not, we’re in it, and we should be in it.” That was her position. Now she says—well, they cannot make their mind up. They supported the war without thinking through the consequences, and now they are pretending they did not support the war and were against it all along. She challenged my position, and she did the mother of all U-turns on the most important decision the Leader of the Opposition ever has to take.

I thank the right hon. Lady for her support for the planning that we are doing with other countries. It is important. It has a number of components: the political and diplomatic component; the logistics of getting the vessels through, on which we are working with the sector; and, of course, the military component. We have been working on that for two or three weeks, and now, with President Macron, we are bringing together the summit later this week.

Yes, we all want to get energy bills down, and oil and gas will be part of the mix for many years, but it is because we are on the international market that our bills have gone up. That is the problem. The strait of Hormuz is a choke point for oil and gas getting to the international market. That has pushed the price up, and that is being reflected in every household. That is why the only way to take control of our energy bills is to go faster on energy independence.

The Leader of the Opposition used to make that argument. In 2022 she said that

“it’s investment in nuclear and renewables that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels”

and keep costs down. She changes her mind on everything. That was her argument; now, just like she pretends she was not in favour of getting involved in the war, she pretends she was not in favour of keeping costs down.

The Leader of the Opposition says that we must be ready. That is coming from a party that hollowed out our armed services. On the Conservatives’ watch, frigates and destroyers were reduced by 25%. Minehunting ships were reduced by 50% on their watch. Yet she lectures us about being ready, having hollowed out our armed forces and hollowed out our capabilities. We are investing £300 million more in shipbuilding, and we have 13 ships on order. That is the difference between the two parties. I hope that she, and they, will forgive me, but after 14 years of their breaking everything under their watch, I am going to resist the offer of joint planning from the party that crashed the economy, hollowed out our armed forces and trashed our public services. Thanks, but no thanks.

April 14, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Comments on Illegal Traveller Sites

The comments made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, on 7 April 2026.

Too many towns and villages have had to accept criminality in their communities because each attempt to deal with illegal traveller sites has fallen foul of the ECHR.

The Conservatives will take back our streets and green spaces, leave the ECHR, and get Britain working again.

April 7, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Statement Following Disorder in Clapham

The statement made by Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Opposition, on 1 April 2026.

Children smashing up shops in broad daylight, stealing and even filming themselves doing it as if it were a game, is a much bigger problem than is being recognised. This is a total collapse of consequences.

To those making snide comments about race or black kids – you do not see scenes like this in Lagos or Nairobi. Not because the children there are different, but because actions have consequences. There are clear boundaries. Parents, communities, and the authorities do not wring their hands or look the other way.

Here, we have created a culture where too many young people believe they can do what they like and nothing will happen. That is the problem.

And we should be honest about where that leads. If a child loots a shop today, films it for social media, and faces no real consequence, they are going to do much worse tomorrow.

This is why under my leadership Conservatives are focusing on ENFORCEMENT, not just making more and more rules.

Our Take Back Our Streets Campaign is about getting 10,000 more police officers, immediate justice and immediate punishment. But let’s be honest, this is not just a policing issue. It is a failure of authority at every level.

Parents need to know where their children are and what they are doing. Discipline should start at home, not in a courtroom.

We have also weakened the system around them. Deterrence is the backbone of criminal justice. Labour have changed the law so anyone receiving a sentence under 12 months will automatically walk free, instead receiving a suspended sentence. When people believe offences like this will not lead to meaningful punishment, we should not be surprised when more of it happens. You get more of what you tolerate.

It’s not like we haven’t been here before. In 2011, when riots spread, the Conservative response was swift and visible. People saw consequences. And behaviour rapidly changed. That is what is missing now.

This all comes down to fairness. Law-abiding people should not feel like fools while gangs smash and grab without consequence. The sad truth is the communities most damaged by this behaviour are often the very ones these young people come from.

Only one approach will fix this: clear rules, real consequences, and the confidence to enforce them.

It’s time to Take Back Our Streets and bring back a culture of enforcement.

April 1, 2026
Kemi Badenoch – 2026 Interview with Laura Kuenssberg

The text of the interview with Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of the Conservative Party, on 29 March 2026.

Laura Kuenssberg: Well, Kemi Badenoch, as promised, Leader of the Opposition is here. Welcome to the studio. Now, we’ve been talking about energy with the Energy Secretary, the Conservatives are saying you should open up North Sea exploration. But how much would that actually save consumers? Because that’s what everyone’s worried about.

Kemi Badenoch: So, what we want to see is the licences for Jackdaw and Rosebank lifted so that they can start drilling…

Laura Kuenssberg: Fields off the North Sea.

Kemi Badenoch: …there’s the pipeline ready there. Overall, the figures that we would have, in terms of what we would get from tax, takes about £25bn over ten years.

Laura Kuenssberg: But what does that mean for consumers?

Kemi Badenoch: £2.5bn could be spent on lowering household bills. There are various figures, up to £80.00. This is just one thing that you could do but also the profits and the taxes which are made from the drilling can be used to subsidise bills. Drilling is part of – drilling the North Sea is something that we need to do for our energy security, financial security as well. That’s how you get national security.

Laura Kuenssberg: But your Shadow Energy Secretary, Claire Coutinho, who was with us a couple of weeks ago, she said on the record it wouldn’t necessarily save very much money. She said that when she was in government.

Kemi Badenoch: Directly, directly but indirectly, yes, it does because you can use the money from there to subsidise. But more importantly jobs are disappearing, we are losing about 1,000 jobs a month in the North Sea oil and gas industry. This is very bad for Scotland in particular. We’re not getting the tax revenue. You know, the government is not sloshing around with money, it’s spending loads on benefits. Let’s use the oil and gas that we have.

Laura Kuenssberg: But I just want to stick on that point because you’re trying to make a big deal of this in political campaigning at the moment. But you’ve just said there that it might not help people directly with their bills but you’re presenting this as a solution to people’s fears about their bills.

Kemi Badenoch: It’s because it requires the governments to make the link. It requires the government. The drilling isn’t going to go directly onto people’s bills, no. But if we can make sure that we stop importing from Norway. 40 per cent of our imports are coming from Norway who are drilling in the same basin. Why are we importing gas that is being drilled in that basin when we won’t drill our own? Why is it – this is a wider thing, it goes beyond bills. We want to bring bills down. We’ve got a cheap power plan for that, mostly by scrapping the silly taxes that Ed Miliband has put on, scrapping the Carbon Tax. We can do that, do something to bring bills down.

But drilling in the North Sea is a bigger issue. This is about our energy security. Yes, let’s have renewables, yes, let’s have nuclear, but just saying no to North Sea oil and gas, something that is already there when we are not ready for a full transition, is a bad decision.

Laura Kuenssberg: But it’s important to be clear to people about what you’re saying because you’re making a big deal of this in a campaigning moment. We’re approaching local elections, you’re implying that this is what would help people with their bills soon.

Kemi Badenoch: It can, yes, it can.

Laura Kuenssberg: But your colleague said it wouldn’t make a big difference but you—

Kemi Badenoch: She said that in government in a totally context. So, let’s not… let’s not mix the two things up. Several years ago.

Laura Kuenssberg: Okay, but you said it would help, you’ve said it might help indirectly. So, let’s just be clear about that because your political opponents say you’re misleading people by…

Kemi Badenoch: No, not, not at all.

Laura Kuenssberg: … if you’re going to say drill baby drill is a solution.

Kemi Badenoch: We need to drill – we need to drill our oil and gas. We can scrap – we can scrap taxes on energy bills today. We don’t need to have them on. Many people don’t know how much of their energy bills are government taxes. We can drill in the North Sea and use the money from that to supplement, to replace. It is all related. Energy policy needs to be linked. No, I’m not saying that once you drill oil and gas in the North Sea it’s going to go straight onto your bills. No-one has said that but it is all related. And pretending that is not related is very dishonest from a government that has a terrible energy policy.

Laura Kuenssberg: And if you take what you called ‘silly taxes’ off bills, and scrapped some of the levies, where do you get the money from to do things that energy experts tell you are absolutely vital like updating the National Grid, supporting renewables businesses? Some of those renewables subsidies have already gone from bills. But where do you get that money from if it doesn’t go on energy bills?

Kemi Badenoch: Well, maybe we can get it from the taxes that we get from the North Sea oil and gas industry that we’re destroying. We need to make sure that we are thinking things through. Right now, what we are seeing is that the Net Zero plans are not working, we’re not getting a good transition to renewables, and we’re stopping the oil and gas drilling. So, we’re getting the worst of both worlds. What I’m saying is let’s make sure we use gas in particular, which is a transition fuel, to actually get to where we need to go.

Laura Kuenssberg: In terms then of what might happen though, in this autumn, because this is what people are worried about. Important to remember bills in the next quarter are going to come down but what many experts are predicting is that they’re going to come up in the autumn.

Kemi Badenoch: Yes.

Laura Kuenssberg: The government said that they would support people who were the least well off, who needed help most. Who would you say should have support with their energy bill?

Kemi Badenoch: So, what I’m very concerned about is that the government is prioritising benefits, benefits, benefits constantly. Right now, what I want to see is them taking the burden off everybody. That’s why I’m very focused on these taxes on bills because they help everyone.

Laura Kuenssberg: No, but who would you support? That’s our question here. Who would you support? So, Liz Truss paid everybody’s energy bill when there was the last energy shock around the war in Ukraine, costing tens of billions to the taxpayer. Who would get support if you were in charge?

Kemi Badenoch: So, I’m rejecting the premise of the question. I want to help everybody but we don’t have to do it with government intervention. This money is not in Keir Starmer’s pocket, it’s taxpayers’ money. So, when we say who would you support? We’re taking money from taxpayers to give to other people. And what I have said—

Laura Kuenssberg: So, would nobody get support then with their energy bills?

Kemi Badenoch: No, that’s not what I’ve said. I’ve said support in a different way.

Laura Kuenssberg: So, what does that mean?

Kemi Badenoch: Take the taxes off the bills. It’s our cheap power plan, take the taxes off the bills, those green taxes. That is a much easier way to do it. Drill in the North Sea and then you get taxes that way. It’s much more coherent.

Laura Kuenssberg: But this is an important question. So, you can reject the premise of the question if you want…

Kemi Badenoch: Yes.

Laura Kuenssberg: … but I can hear people screaming at their TV, saying who would get help if there’s an energy spike and perhaps the answer is no one?

Kemi Badenoch: And I… and I’m saying – no, I literally said we can help everybody, just not in this way.

Laura Kuenssberg: So, are you—

Kemi Badenoch: We need to stop pretending that there’s a big pile of cash that Keir Starmer has, which he’s just going to use to help people. He is taxing other people in order to provide that help. I am talking to businesses day in, day out, who are saying we’re sacking people, we’re closing down, because we cannot afford this. So, let’s stop pretending that Keir Starmer is a huge philanthropist who’s just trying to help people. What he is doing is taxing people to pay benefits.

Laura Kuenssberg: That’s been—

Kemi Badenoch: That has been this government’s strategy from the get-go…

Laura Kuenssberg: But I want to—

Kemi Badenoch: … and I’m saying lower taxes.

Laura Kuenssberg: What I want to be very clear, though, is if there is a big spike in people’s energy bills, are you ruling out a direct—

Kemi Badenoch: So, I’m not ruling out, I’m not ruling out anything. What I’m saying is let’s start off with taking the taxes. We do what we need to in government. I think government needs to do what it needs to. But let’s not pretend that these huge bailouts don’t come with a cost. We had, as a Conservative government, the biggest bailout during Covid. We paid people to stay at home and when it was happening everyone said thank you. But immediately afterwards, when the shock came, interest rates spiked, everyone forgot about that. I’m saying governments need to start by taking taxes down first before looking for bailouts which are going to cost taxpayers.

Laura Kuenssberg: It’s a very clear philosophical divide between you and Keir Starmer but I’m just trying to press you. And maybe the answer is that you don’t know yet, you want to wait and see. But are you saying that you would never consider a direct payment to people to help with their energy bills?

Kemi Badenoch: No, I’m not, I’m not saying that at all. What I don’t want to do is talk about the hypothetical and speculative things and set hares running when actually we don’t know what the situation is. We have, as Conservatives, done bailouts before, as you saw during Covid, the biggest bailout. Many people now see what the effects of that are. What I’m saying is that bailouts have a cost.

Start off by reducing the taxes, drill in the North Sea, it’s good for our energy security, our financial security, our national security. Listening to Bridget sitting there saying we need to do everything, except the North Sea because of their ideological issues with it. This is all to do with Ed Miliband, he started this. He started these policies back when he was first energy secretary. He is the one running the government according to Keir Starmer. I asked him on Wednesday, he said he couldn’t make a decision because of Ed Miliband. I think that’s quite ridiculous.

Laura Kuenssberg: Well, the Conservatives also changed their positions on energy quite a lot in recent years too. And just, we are—

Kemi Badenoch: Well I’ve changed, I’ve changed our policy. We are under new leadership and I’m being very specific. We need to do what is right for the country today.

Laura Kuenssberg: In terms of your leadership, what does a good result look for you like in the local elections in a few weeks’ time, and the national elections in Scotland and Wales?

Kemi Badenoch: So, I’ve been very clear that we’ve got to fight for every seat. The era of two-party politics has turned into an era of multi-party politics. Things are different and we only just left office 18 months ago. It’s going to be very tough, and a challenge, but Conservatives are coming back. People are liking—

Laura Kuenssberg: Are you going to gain seats?

Kemi Badenoch: People are liking the messages. I’m sure that we will. People are liking the messages that they are hearing from us, abolishing stamp duty, getting rid of business rates for most of the high street.

Laura Kuenssberg: Not according to their polls. I mean your personal ratings have improved a bit since – in the last couple of months. But according to the polls, and there they are as if by magic, you were 26 per cent when you took over, now you’re down at 17 per cent. The public doesn’t agree with you.

Kemi Badenoch: Well, actually, as I said the last time you asked me this question on your show, sometimes when you have a long term strategy, in the short term you do face difficulties. But I’m not going to be dissuaded from doing the right thing. There is only one party that is actually making proper plans, not just announcing random things, and that’s the Conservative Party. Serious plans and people are – when the general election comes, people are going to want to know what is actually going to happen. And they’ll be looking to the Conservative Party because we’re the only credible alternative to Labour.

Laura Kuenssberg: Okay, well we will see. Kemi Badenoch, thanks very much indeed for coming in to see us today.

March 29, 2026