Tories will channel anger at Labour, vows Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch says she wants to channel public “anger” towards Labour, as she seeks to position the Conservatives as the only party willing to make the “tough decisions” facing the UK.

Speaking to the BBC, the Tory leader accused Sir Keir Starmer of failing to properly fund the armed forces, despite “spending too much” overall in other areas.

And she accused Reform UK of an “authoritarian” desire to “control” industry, citing its policies on the oil sector and Rolls-Royce.

She added that Labour’s “draconian” approach had become clearer to voters after 18 months in office.

Labour hit back, arguing that the public was still “paying the price” after the Tories’ 14 years in power.

Speaking to BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Badenoch said: “It’s clearer what they are doing, so it is clearer what we are opposing”.

“I’m trying to channel the anger that a lot of people out there feel about the way the country is being run,” she added.

She added that the Conservatives had “learned a lot of lessons” since their ejection from power in the 2024 general election.

“We think we’re the only party that’s both competent enough and brave enough to take the tough decisions that will get the country in the right place,” she said.

Responding to Badenoch’s interview, a Labour statement said the public was still “paying the price” for the “failure” of the Conservatives in government.

“This Labour government will not return to the Tory austerity that hammered public services and sent NHS waiting lists soaring,” it added.

Badenoch, who has led the Conservatives since November 2024, faces a steep task in turning her party’s fortunes around as she begins the new year.

Tory poll ratings have improved only marginally in recent months, despite her increasingly winning plaudits for her performances holding the government to account in Parliament.

But her party is having to compete with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK to capitalise on Labour’s unpopularity.

In her interview with Kuenssberg, Badenoch continued recent attacks on both Labour and Reform’s economic policies, accusing them of offering “two different types of authoritarianism” and “two different types of grievance”.

She dismissed the prospect of doing a deal with Farage’s party to avoid splitting support among voters whose views are traditionally to the right of Labour, adding that Reform “wants to do the same things that Labour wants to do”.

She highlighted the party’s welfare stance, after Reform said last year it favoured lifting the two-child benefits cap for working British couples.

She also criticised Reform’s policy of offering government investment in oil and gas drilling in return for a taxpayer stake in projects, adding it showed many in Farage’s party favoured “using the state to control things”.

She also took aim at Reform’s recent suggestion it would seek to own part of FTSE 100-listed engineering giant Rolls-Royce in return for offering the company contracts to build small nuclear reactors.

“They want to increase welfare spending, they want to nationalise Rolls-Royce, oil and gas,” she said, adding: “that’s not where we want to be”.

“Right now I believe the government is doing too much,” she told the programme, instead of focusing on things that “only the government can do”.

Elsewhere in her interview, Badenoch said she supported the idea the UK could work with the US to oust the government in Iran, following Iran’s growing crackdown on protests calling for an end to the country’s regime.

“I don’t have an issue with removing a regime that is trying to harm us,” she added, while declining to comment on whether this should include offering the British military towards such an effort.

“Iran would very happily wipe out the UK if it felt it could get away with it. It has tried to kill people on our soil. It is an enemy,” she added.

The Conservative leader dismissed questions on whether the UK would send troops to protect Greenland in the event that the Danish region is invaded by the US, adding this was “getting ahead of ourselves”.

She added that Trump’s threats towards Greenland were a “second order issue” compared with the situation in Iran, although she was “completely shocked” by the US president’s comments on wanting to control the island.

She added that Trump was “looking strategically at the axis of authoritarian states” around the world, citing Iran as well as Russia, China and North Korea, and the UK needed to “start thinking on that scale”.