Kemi Badenoch - 'I'm up for the fight with Burnham and Farage'

Two years ago the Conservative Party was in ruins when it held its annual conference in Birmingham. It had just suffered a humiliating and catastrophic landslide general defeat to Labour - bringing 14 years in power to a juddering end, leaving the party searching for a new leader. Kemi Badenoch ultimately won the battle to replace Rishi Sunak , defeating James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick in a tight battle. Two years later and they’re back. Back in Birmingham for this year’s party jamboree but back as a political force too. When I sat down to interview Mrs Badenoch earlier this week it’s easy to see why she is now regarded as the UK’s most popular political party leader. She has managed to reignite a spark in her party from the ashes of defeat, giving hope to the thousands of supporters heading to the Midlands this weekend. The Tories are challenging both Labour and Nigel Farage ’s Reform UK in the polls, her party seems completely united and there have been some eye-catching and sensible policy announcements. But Mrs Badenoch insists there is still much more work to do. “I was told that nobody would even want to hear from us for the first two years. That's not the case,” she says as we chat in her Westminster office. “They've seen us hold Keir Starmer 's administration to account, and they're going to see us do that again with Andy Burnham. The second thing is that the more people see of Reform, the less they like. They're not really providing the depth that you would want to see from a government. “But I still have a long way to go to get where I want to be, which is a majority in Parliament. “That is the ambition. I'm confident we can do it, but we're not out of the woods yet.” Mrs Badenoch tells me she is relishing a formidable two-front war, taking on both “old-school socialist” Burnham and “Grumpy Grandpa” Farage. “I’m up for the fight”, the 46-year-old mother-of-three says. But despite her own personal popularity, the party is lagging behind. She’s hoping a recent refresh of her top team - new shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith in particular - will soon change that. The economy is both the Tories achilles heel and one of its biggest weapons. Trust was completely blown after the Liz Truss era but alarm bells are ringing after two years of a Labour government which has embarked on a tax rise frenzy since 2024. Reform is still trying to be regarded as a capable force when it comes to economic matters too. So with the country heading into troubling times again, the political battle for economic credibility is crucial. The Tories are assembling a tight, fiscally responsible economic blueprint. Unlike Labour’s tax-and-spend splurge, Mrs Badenoch’s golden economic rule is clear - every penny saved from curbing the ballooning £350billion welfare bill will be used to lower taxes for working people, abolish punitive local business charges, and slash deficits. Last year’s pledge to abolish Stamp Duty on residential properties was extremely well received. The same can be said for the Conservative’s pro-business promises, help for high streets and plans to remove VAT on domestic energy for three years. Andy Burnham’s lurch to 1970s-style socialism of mass nationalisation is manna from heaven for the Tories. Not to mention his plans to axe the pension triple lock , reverse Brexit and his declaration war on the UK’s voting system. For Mrs Badenoch, this isn’t just bad politics, “it is dangerous for Britain”. “And that's why I'm the best person to take him on because my policies are rooted very firmly in Conservative principles,” she told me with trademark directness. These issues create major political dividing lines between the two. At conference she will announce plans to “put the fair back in welfare” – both for taxpayers and those condemned to a life on handouts. This will include a new pledge to stop under-25s with less than six months of continuous work from signing straight onto Universal Credit. As a bit of fun the Tories will also display an 88ft-long illustration of Labour’s first two years in power in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry featuring 150 taxpayers being shot in the eye with a tax arrow. While keeping her cards close to her chest regarding specific announcements, Mrs Badenoch tried to play down that she will scrap the hated Inheritance Tax if she becomes Prime Minister. In recent interviews, she has made no secret of her deep moral objection to the death tax, which penalises families, farmers, and small business creators who have worked hard all their lives. “If you've got a family business or a family farm, you've worked hard, you should be able to hand that down,” she argued. “These are the people who create jobs in our economy. It's not Andy Burnham making more mayors that's going to grow the economy; it's going to be those people.” Crucially, the party is preparing for power with absolute seriousness. Fearing that Burnham may call a surprise snap election to capitalise on a short-term poll bounce, Mrs Badenoch took the unprecedented step of demanding formal pre-election access talks with Cabinet Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo. The move is designed to ensure civil servants start working immediately on her radical plans - including leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), instituting strict border control, and enforcing a "detain and deport" system for illegal migrants. While Burnham presents a formidable opponent on the Left, the battle for the soul of the Right is being fought with equal ferocity. A year ago, Nigel Farage and Reform UK appeared almost unstoppable. Riding high in the polls, Farage swaggered through political conferences boasting about a populist revolution. Twelve months later, the shine has comprehensively worn off, and the wheels are coming off the Reform wagon. Engulfed in financial scandals over a £5 million undeclared gift from a crypto-billionaire and hit by an explosive Channel 4 investigation into party donor irregularities, Farage’s party has been dragged into police probes and internal warfare. Key aides Dan Jukes and James Orr have stood down, while Farage resorted to a somewhat bizarre, self-triggered by-election in Clacton to dodge parliamentary ethics scrutiny - spending weeks fighting off comedian Count Binface. Mrs Badenoch has shown zero mercy in dismantling Farage’s pretensions and any kind of Tory-Reform pact appears non-existent, especially as she described the idea as “monstrous”. Recent polling by YouGov shows Mrs Badenoch surging ahead of Farage by more than two to one when voters are asked who would make the best Prime Minister (38% to 17%). Meanwhile, a large-scale seat by seat poll by YouGov last week suggests the UK is heading for a hung parliament with Labour the largest party, with 241 seats. The Conservatives would be in second place with 130 seats, better than their result in the 2024 general election, while Reform would be pushed into third place with 123 seats. But some senior Tories don’t think the party is ready for an election yet. One told me this week: “Kemi has done a great job after a quiet first year but we are not ready yet. If the polls give him confidence then Burnham should do it now because us and Reform are effectively cancelling each other out. “But we are on an upward curve and it won’t be long before we will be the dominant party on the Right. We need Burnham to go long [hold an election in 2028 or 2029].” If party funding is anything to go by then the party is in rude health. The Conservatives don’t have the £72 million crypto rocket fuel that Reform have just been handed but their £10 million in donations in the first half of this year put the party ahead of Labour. They also have a shiny new headquarters, the focal point of a very organised party machine which is firing on all cylinders. But things aren’t all hunky dory. Mrs Badenoch has faced criticism for banning former ministers, such as Grant Shapps and Penny Mordaunt , from the list of Tory candidates. Some say, despite her seemingly impregnable position, she fears a leadership challenge before the next election if she doesn’t turn things around in the polls. And this is the problem. By and large, the party’s poll rating has stayed the same since she took over as leader in 2024. The next six months are likely to be the most important of Mrs Badenoch’s leadership so far. Can she outmuscle Reform on the Right and get her party fit and ready to win a general election which could come sooner rather than later. Birmingham, the scene of the Tory ground zero, will now witness a party on its way to being rebuilt. Supporters will be hoping that Kemi “the engineer” can take them all the way back to the top.