The Guardian view on Kemi Badenoch's speech: following the path of denial, delusion and defeat | Editorial

"Mrs Badenoch's keynote speech closing the conference on Wednesday was a mix of denial, delusion and obsolete dogma. She bemoaned the state of Britain's economy and public services with no hint of contrition for the harmful effect that 14 years of Conservative government might have had on the state of the nation. The twin causes of decline that she asserts with monomaniacal fervour are a bloated state and excess immigration."

"Her formula for renewal is to reduce public spending, fire a third of all civil servants, reverse all of Labour's revenue-raising tax measures, cut other taxes, and repudiate Britain's international treaty obligations as a precursor to mass deportation of unwelcome foreigners. She would also abandon Britain's statutory commitments to reduce carbon emissions. It is a programme moulded precisely to the contours of a post-Brexit Conservative comfort zone. It contains no original thought."

Kemi Badenoch survived her first Conservative conference but is failing on other metrics, including poor poll ratings, shrinking and demoralised membership, and defections to Reform UK. She offers no plausible explanation for last year's electoral defeat, undermining prospects of recovering supporters or recruiting new ones. Her assessments of the party's record are shallow and disingenuous, and her policy prescriptions are outmoded and misguided, repeating radical right-wing Thatcherite post-Brexit orthodoxies. Her keynote mixed denial, delusion and obsolete dogma, blaming a bloated state and excess immigration while proposing deep public-spending cuts, mass civil-service layoffs, tax reversals, treaty repudiations, mass deportations and abandonment of carbon commitments. Her programme contains no original thought and fails to acknowledge that 2025 requires distinct policy solutions.

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