Badenoch says she agrees with Jenrick about need for more community integration
Nugent asks about this Guardian story about Robert Jenrick.
Q: Jenrick talks about wanting people to be properly accurate. Do you approve of that?
Badenoch says, given it is the Guardian, she will take it with “a pinch of salt”. She says:
Given that it’s The Guardian, I think I’m going to take some of that with a pinch of salt.
They haven’t always been the most accurate newspaper.
She suggests the quotes might have been taken out of context.
I don’t know what was being discussed before he said that. But in and of itself, it’s a factual statement.
If he said he didn’t see another white face, he might have been making an observation. There’s nothing wrong with making observations.
But what he and I both agree with is that there are not enough people integrating. There are many people who are creating separate communities. I’m very worried.
Q: So you agree with his concerns?
Badenoch says:
Well, I wasn’t there, so I can’t say how many faces he saw, but the point is that there are many people in our country who are not integrating. I heard that one of the MPs of that area was accusing him of racism. I completely disagree with that. I want to make that very clear. In fact, I’m quite worried about these sectarian MPs who’ve been elected in Birmingham, very, very divisive politics, people who are more interested in talking about Gaza.
Key events
Q: What would you say to Robert Jenrick about his Handworth comments?
Badenoch says those comments were taken out of context.
But she and Jenrick are both worried about integration not going far enough.
She attacks Birmingham Labour politicians again, accusing them of being sectarian.
Q: Is it true that the national anthem has been axed from the final day of conference?
Badenoch says they sang the national anthem on Sunday. She says she does not know where the story came from.
(But she should have been able to guess – GB News, of course.)
Badenoch suggests they will sing it tomorrow.
And that is the end of Badenoch’s interview round.
Q: How would you grade your time as leader so far?
Badenoch replies: “Difficult.”
She says she was worried about the party splitting. And it’s finances were in a poor state. She has addressed both problem.
Q: Your party cannot even spell Britain properly?
Badenoch says that was a typo. It is “fatuous” to pretend that is the same as running government.
That is a reference to this story.
Q: How many civil service jobs under your plans to cut spending there by £8bn?
Badenoch says it would be “a lot”. She does not have the number.
Q: What are the figures if you cut numbers back to pro-2016 levels.
Badenoch says she does not have the figures to hand.
Q: These are people’s jobs. You should know.
Badenoch says if a job should not exist, there is no point keeping it.
She says most of the Tory savings will come from welfare cuts.
Q: How much personal responsibility do you take for the failures of the last government on immigration?
Badenoch says she was not in the Home Office. As business secretary, she pushed for policies to bring down immigration.
But they must take collective responsibility, she says.
Badenoch suggests Reform UK defectors are joining party backing higher spending, and she wants Tories to stay ‘for right reasons’
Asked about defections, Badenoch says she wants people in her party “for the right reasons”.
People joining Reform UK are joining a party in favour of higher spending.
Badenoch claims poll suggesting half of Tory members want her replaced ‘not accurate’
Nick Ferrari from LBC is interviewing Kemi Badenoch now.
Q: A poll yesterday said half of members want you to stand down. What would you say to them?
Badenoch says he is not bother. She claims a poll before the leadership contest last year said she would lose. She says “these polls are not accurate”.
Q: What was the mistake the Tories made? Tax? Inflation? The Liz Truss budget? Immigration?
Badenoch says Reid did not listen to her speech on Sunday, where she addressed all this.
Balls says he can sense Badenoch’s frustation. Badenoch laughs. She says she is having a good conference. She says Balls is trying to rile him.
Q: Why don’t you tell Robert Jenrick to get back in his box?
Badenoch says Jenrick is a valued member of a strong team.
Badenoch brushes off announcement from Reform UK about another councillor defection from Tories
Reid asks about another defection. She is referring to this annoucement from Reform UK.
Rushcliffe councillor Debbie Soloman has joined Reform UK, saying only Nigel Farage’s party have the answers to the biggest problems facing the country.
Cllr Debbie Soloman has represented Newton on the council since 2023, and had previously been a member of the Conservative party. But she says “The Conservative party is over. Only Reform can deliver the change Britain needs’”.
Badenoch says it was always going to be a difficult journey back, and you lose some people along the way.
UPDATE: Badenoch said:
Reform is a party that wants to spend more on welfare. We know there’s some Conservatives who agree with those policies, on increased welfare, on nationalisation and if that’s what they think is right for them, then we’re sorry to lose them. But we need to make it very clear that we are the party of fiscal responsibility …
It’s going to be a long journey back from a historic defeat and on very long, difficult journeys you will lose some people on the way. But if these people cannot stick with us because opposition is difficult, then they’re not going to be able to stick with us when government gets difficult.
Q: Chris Philp, the home secretary, wants to give the police to carry out stop and search without cause. And Robert Jenrick, the justice secretary, wants to sack political judges. These are authoritarian ideas, like Reform UK. Do you approve?
Badenoch says she is in favour. On stop and search, she says it is black parents who tell her they are in favour.
Kemi Badenoch is on ITV’s Good Morning Britain now. Susanna Reid and Ed Balls are presenting.
Q: You would not say you went to Handsworth and did not see a single white face.
Badenoch says it was a long speech by Robert Jenrick. A lot of what he said has not been reported. She suggests again his comments were taken out of context.
Q: Andy Street says Robert Jenrick is wrong. And he would say you are wrong too.
Badenoch says Jenrick was saying what he was saw. Street was talking about his experience.
She says there are Labour MPs in Birmingham who are sectarian, and who are more interested in Gaza than Birmingham.
She says Britain is multiracial country. It must be a multicultural society too.
Q: Prof Sir John Curtice says the voters do not know who you are?
Badenoch says this job was always going to be difficult.
She says her first task was to make sure the party did not split. And she had to sort out the party’s finances.
She is now explaining what the party will do.
She is not a reality TV politician, she says.
Badenoch is now dealing with questions about the low turnout at conference.
She claims this is a complaint that crops up every year.
And she repeats the point about the Patrick Cosgrave Thatcher book. (See 8.04am.)
Badenoch argues post-Brexit trade deal with EU would not stop Tories leaving ECHR, beacuse trade deal can be terminated
Q: Leaving the ECHR will cause a problem with our post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. How will you deal with that?
Badenoch says she does not accept that.
She says the trade agreement can be terminated with 12 month’s notice.
But the UK would not need to remain in the ECHR for the deal to continue, she says.
She rejects suggestion that Lord Wolfson, the shadow attorney general who wrote a report for her on this, said this would be difficult.
She says Alex Burghart is going to look at how ECHR would be implemented.
Badenoch rejects claim she does not know where the 150,000 migrants Tories went to deport every year will go
Foster asks about the Tory plan for a removals force.
Badenoch does not accept that she failed to answer Laura Kuenssberg’s question about where the 150,000 the Tories want to deport every year might be deported to.
(She did dodge the questions – see here.)
She says:
They will go where people who are always deported go back home, and if they can’t go back home, then to a third country. That’s what the Rwanda policy was supposed to be.
She says the Tories will negotiate returns agreement with countries.
Badenoch claims Jenrick’s Handsworth comment may have been taken out of context, as she accepts people should not be judged on colour
Kemi Badenoch is on the Today programme now. Anna Foster is interviewing him.
Q: Do you support Jenrick’s comments?
Badenoch says she has not heard the recording. As she suggests Jenrick has been misquoted, Foster says the BBC has heard the recording, and he has not been taken out of context.
Q: Andy Street says Jenrick was wrong. Jenrick said he did not see another white face, and then said he did not want to live in a country like that.
Badenoch says there would have been “context” before that remark. So just looking at two sentences is not fair.
She says she and Jenrick both want a country that is integrated. Skin colour should not matter.
She says we need a “socially cohesive country”.
Q: Is how many white people you see in an area a measure of integration?
Badenoch says people should not care what people look like.
Q: He does.
Badenoch reverts to saying she does not know the context.
But she does not want to live in a country where people are scared of saying things because of concerns about race.
Former Tory mayor Andy Street says Jenrick wrong about Handsworth, saying it’s ‘very integrated place’ and no slum
Kemi Badenoch was asked about the Guardian’s story about Robert Jenrick complaining about Handsworth in Birmingham, saying thata he did not see another white face when he visited and that it was not the sort of Britain he wanted to live in.
On Newsnight last night Andy Street, the former Tory mayor of the West Midlands, was also asked about Jenrick’s comments. He said:
I was very proud to be mayor of the most diverse place in Britain, a Conservative mayor with that background.
Putting it bluntly, Robert is wrong. It’s a place I know very well, Handsworth. It’s come a hell of a long way in the 40 years since the last civil disturbances there.
And it’s actually a very integrated place. If you go along the main streets there, you will see Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, a lot of them of African and Caribbean origin, and of course, white people as well. It is actually one of the most successfully integrated place. Brilliant civic society, brilliant faith leadership.
Asked about Jenrick’s claim that he had seen some of the worst slums ever in Handsworth, Street replied:
I think he was trying to make a point which I don’t agree with.
If you go to the schools in Handsworth, I’ve been to a number recently, you see incredible hope, optimism and people taking part in education which is based around British values and thinking about how they can make a contribution to the future of their their region, their city and their area. That is not a definition of a slum.
Badenoch says her experiences as party leader echo what happened to Margaret Thatcher when she became leader in 1975.
She says she has been reading the book Margaret Thatcher: A Tory and Her Party, by Patrick Cosgrave, about this period.
She says she thinks history “rhymes”.
Q: Did you like Jilly Cooper’s books?
Yes, says Badenoch. She says she read Polo, “probably years before I should have read it”.
Q: Do you have a favourite author?
Terry Pratchett, says Badenoch. She says she finds him very funny. She thinks she has all his books, except for the last one.
Q: Do you think Greta Thunberg is a force for good?
Badenoch says she would not say that. She says other people have been campaigning on these issues. And Thunberg started young; Badenoch suggests she was pushed into it.