Kemi Badenoch to criticise Theresa May and Boris Johnson ‘mistakes’
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Tory leader to condemn predecessors’ Brexit, climate and migration failings amid rising popularity of Reform UK. Kemi Badenoch will attack the Conservative party’s record under Boris Johnson and Theresa May on Brexit, the economy, net zero and immigration in a speech aimed at “rebuilding trust”.
The Tory leader, who is competing with the sharp rise in popularity of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, will “acknowledge the Conservative party made mistakes” under her predecessors. Badenoch will single out the decision to pursue Brexit without a plan for economic growth outside the EU, the failure to bring down migration despite repeated promises to do so, and the legal commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 without specifying how.
Her words are an acknowledgment of the Conservatives’ responsibility for the UK’s weak growth over the past five years. They serve as a public rebuke to May and Johnson, who steered the UK’s departure from the EU after the 2016 referendum. May was also the prime minister who wrote the UK’s commitment to net zero by 2050 into law. Badenoch has been critical of climate policies and described net zero targets in 2022 as “unilateral economic disarmament”.
She will say in her speech: “For the next four years and beyond, we are going to be telling the British people the truth, even when it’s difficult to hear. The truth about the mistakes we made. The truth about the problems we face. And the truth about the actions we must take to get ourselves out of this mess.
