Badenoch Outlines Economic Approach, Contrasting with Labour

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch declared that her economic strategy would be “completely the opposite” of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ approach. During an interview with Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC on her inaugural day as leader, Badenoch outlined initial policy priorities, such as reversing the VAT increase for private schools. She acknowledged that the Conservatives “got a lot of things wrong” prior to their significant election loss, specifically mentioning immigration and tax issues. However, she declined to conduct a “post-mortem” of previous leaders and asserted that the Partygate scandal was “overblown”. Badenoch indicated that she aims to demonstrate party unity through a meritocratically chosen front bench, with shadow cabinet appointments anticipated within the coming days. When questioned about reversing the Chancellor’s decision to raise employers’ national insurance (NI) contributions, Badenoch responded that she is not the Chancellor and commands “very few” MPs. She stated, “We’re not going to be able to oppose anything in terms of getting legislation through,” further explaining that her role would be limited to “make the argument that raising taxes in this way… is not going to grow our economy and will leave all of us poorer”. Nevertheless, when directly questioned about reversing the VAT increase on private schools, Badenoch responded unequivocally, stating, “yes, yes, I would… because it’s a tax on aspiration, but it won’t raise any money” and was consequently “against our principles”. She further informed Ms Kuenssberg that “it is not the government that creates growth, it is business that creates growth,” noting that this perspective is “completely the opposite of what Rachel Reeves is doing”. Badenoch, recognized as the first black leader of a Westminster party, expressed disagreement not only with Reeves’ economic policies but also with her manner of discussing her status as the first woman chancellor in the position’s 800-year history. She commented: “I think that the best thing will be when we get to a point where the colour of your skin is no more remarkable than the colour of your eyes, or the colour of your hair.” “I find it astonishing that Rachel Reeves keeps talking about how she’s the first female chancellor, which in my view is a very, very low glass ceiling within the Labour Party, which she may have smashed. “Nowhere near as significant as what other women in this country have achieved.” She also criticized the leadership of her predecessor, Rishi Sunak, attributing his loss of voter trust to the fact that “promises on immigration and on tax were not kept and that is something that we need to change”. Badenoch resigned from Boris Johnson’s cabinet due to his management of the Chris Pincher affair, an event she stated led the public to believe “we were no longer speaking for them or looking out them, we were in it for ourselves”. Regarding the Partygate scandal, however, she asserted that Johnson had fallen into “a trap.” She commented, “A lot of the stuff that happened around Partygate was not why I resigned – I thought it was overblown,” adding, “We should not have created fixed penalty notices… that was us not going with our principles.” When prompted to apologize for the economic instability during Liz Truss’s tenure, Badenoch expressed a desire to “draw a line” under the errors of past leaders and declined to conduct a “post-mortem” of every Conservative leader “for the past 14 years.” Instead, Badenoch stated her primary objective was to restore trust and foster an image of unity within the party, acknowledging this task was “very tricky,” especially when “not everybody wants to serve.” She further remarked: “The public didn’t trust us for a whole bunch of reasons – not keeping promises but also looking disunited.” Addressing the shift of Conservative voters to Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage in the recent election, Badenoch refuted the idea that she would merely present voters with “more of the same”. She stated: “Nigel Farage and the success of Reform are a symptom of the Conservative party in my view, not being clear enough and consistent enough about values and about how we were using those Conservative values to deliver to the British people. “If we get this right, then I think people will start to see that Reform is nothing but a spoiler for the Conservatives and just creates more and more Labour government.”