Kemi Badenoch has accused some of her Conservative leadership opponents of seeking “easy answers” over immigration as she presented herself as the only candidate realistic enough to turn the party around.
At a launch event in central London attended by Conservative MPs, Badenoch said she was a plain-speaking realist who could diagnose long-term problems and take the political fight to Labour.
She contrasted this with what she described as the slogan-based promises of some opponents whose pledges included migration targets and withdrawal from the European court of human rights (ECHR). While she did not mention any by name, the attack line was seemingly directed at her close rivals Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat, both of whom have called for strict caps on net migration.
“We had a cap of tens of thousands when David Cameron came in,” said Badenoch, the former business secretary who now shadows the housing, communities and local government brief. “We need to ask ourselves, why didn’t that work, rather than just saying we’ll make another promise.”
She added: “It’s not just about throwing out numbers and throwing out targets. Something is wrong with the system. People who are throwing out numbers, and saying they will leave the ECHR and so on are giving you easy answers.”
The words did not, however, indicate a shift towards the political centre for Badenoch, who complained that the previous Conservative government had “talked right but governed left”.
On immigration she also signalled her willingness to impose tough policies, saying: “If people don’t want their taxes to pay for foreign criminals to be in our jails or on our streets, those criminals should be removed. If they want local people to have priority for housing, for benefits, for school places, we must make that happen.”
Asked for an example of how the last government had governed like Labour, Badenoch cited the imposition of targets to reach net zero. “We all want to deliver a better environment, but creating legislation and a target without working out how we were going to do it, in my view, was trusting regulation rather than innovation,” she said.
Leaning into her reputation as a politician whose plainspokenness can, according to some colleagues, come across as abrasive, Badenoch talked about her training as an engineer, saying these were people who “see the world as it truly is”.
She said: “I refuse do to spin. I do charm sometimes, but I think life is better when people say what they think. For too long, politics has just been about working out what the voters want to hear and then saying it back to them. It is the triumph of words over deeds, and that has to change.”
Badenoch is seen as likely to make it to the final four candidates after two are removed during voting among Tory MPs this week, and she had a series of colleagues at the launch. Among these was Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, who introduced and endorsed Badenoch.
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Badenoch’s speech also referenced her regular forays into “culture war” issues, notably over gender and race, saying she was “far, far more worried” about the election of four independent MPs who campaigned heavily on issues connected to Gaza than the arrival of five Reform UK members.
Asked whether she had spent too much time on culture war issues in government, Badenoch said people making such criticisms “were not paying attention” given that as well as being business secretary she had the role of equalities minister.
She said: “I had to look after very, very tricky issues like race and gender, things that everybody ran away from. I didn’t run away. And not only did I not run away, I defended people who needed help, and I dragged Labour on to our turf.”
