Kemi Badenoch has issued a stark warning to those joining Reform (Image: PA)
Kemi Badenoch blasted Tories flocking to join Nigel Farage and told others they are free to leave if they do not support “traditional, authentic Conservatism”.
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The Conservative leader, putting the economy at the centre of her pitch to voters, said Reform UK will make the UK’s economic crisis “worse”.
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Mrs Badenoch also warned Mr Farage wants to “increase benefits”, adding “we are the only party talking about living within our means”.
The Conservative leader branded Reform a “populist party” that is exploiting a Labour Government in “freefall”.
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Asked what Sir Jake Berry, Nadine Dorries, David Jones and Graham Simpson have in “common”, the Tory leader said: “They’re all people who decided to leave the Conservative Party and join Reform, which is extraordinary because the biggest problem facing our country is that the economy is in crisis and Nigel Farage will only make it worse.
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“He wants to increase benefits.
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“We’re the only party talking about living within our means, and that’s quite important.
“What I’m doing is turning the Conservative Party into the traditional, authentic Conservativism that people recognise, and that’s going to mean taking some tough decisions.
“I’m afraid if people don’t like it, then they are welcome to leave.”
Mrs Badenoch is scrambling to revive the Conservatives’ sliding poll ratings, with the ‘poll of polls’ putting the party on 17%.
And the Tories are facing an intensifying threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Reform are polling at around 31%.
Mrs Badenoch added: “Oppositions take a long time to come back after historic defeats. The last opposition had been 14 years, 13 years and 18 years.
“I’ve been in 10 months and I have something that is very different from what previous Conservative oppositions have had, which is a challenger party that claims to be on the right.
Both Labour and the Conservatives are concerned about the threat of Nigel Farage (Image: PA)
Nigel Farage is trying to attract more people with Government experience (Image: Getty)
“Those are things that are going to take time to deal with.
“The reason why this is happening and why populist and protest parties are doing well, is because the government that won a historic majority is in freefall.
“This time last week, Keir Starmer hadn’t even started his reset, and already, it’s over.
“We have a Deputy Prime Minister resigning because she hasn’t paid ￡40,000 in tax and the public are fed up.
“My job now is to show that the Conservative Party has changed under my leadership.
“It’s going to take time, it’s not going to be easy, but the way we’re doing it is by making sure that we have a real plan for government, not just announcements like other parties have, but a real plan for delivery.”
Asked if she could keep calling Reform a protest party when it is so far ahead of the Conservatives in the polls, Mrs Badenoch insisted: “Nigel Farage himself said pretty much that, that people are angry with the previous two parties and he has a blank sheet.
“But what I’m saying is that he is making the same mistake that Labour did. Labour said once we remove Conservatives, everything will be fine.
“Now he’s saying once we remove Labour and Conservatives, everything will be fine. Still making the same mistakes of not doing the real work in opposition of figuring out how we solve our problems.
“Our economy is no longer productive.
“We are living beyond our means. We are spending more on debt interest than we do on education.
“We are spending so much on welfare, health and social benefits, far more than on defence.
“We are not in a good place. How are we going to get ourselves out of this? He doesn’t have a plan. We’re working on one.
“We’ve already come up with policies around borders where we know we’ve made mistakes. We know we’ve made mistakes but we’re learning from them. What I see is Labour and Nigel Farage making bigger mistakes than the ones we did and they will run into trouble.”
Mr Farage said his party's biggest weakness is "experience at government level".
He said that Mrs Dorries "brings us the one commodity we're very short of and that's experience at government level".
Mr Farage said: "That is our biggest weakness. You could ask me lots of questions about policy and personnel and all the rest of it, but if you ask me, how are you going to do this? I can't really give you an answer, because I haven't got anybody in the senior team that's ever been there before.
"Nadine came yesterday. She's the first, and there will be others."
Anna Turley, Labour Party chairwoman, responding to Mr Farage's comments, said: "Nigel Farage has no plan for Britain. Now he's admitted he doesn't have confidence that his team is capable of delivering a plan if he did have one.
"'Don't know' answers won't solve the problems the country faces. And putting yourself forwards for high office while admitting your team aren't fit to govern isn't patriotism, it's egotism.
"Britain deserves better."
And Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said an alliance with Reform UK is "not going to happen".
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He added: "Of course, listen, Nigel Farage Reform is a very good razzmatazz. Interesting to see all that happening on stage.
“Well, that's a couple of days, but the reality is there was no mention, no mention whatsoever, how they're going to fill their own ￡140 billion-a-year black hole and put that in context as... there's already a deficit in the country because of Labour's actions.
"But ￡130 billion-a-year. So you're talking about spending commitments, nearly ￡300 billion-a-year more than we're collecting in taxes. This is simply impossible."
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