UK

Kemi Badenoch Unable To Say Where 150,000 Migrants A Year Will Go Once They Are DeportedKemi Badenoch has admitted the Tories have a “mountain to climb” as she closed her first conference speech as party leader.The Conservative leader spoke at the opening of the Tory party’s four-day conference in Manchester on Sunday afternoon. She described the Conservatives as the party that will “strengthen our borders, restore our sovereignty and rebuild our prosperity”.On the eve of the event, she unveiled plans for a special task force, called the “Removals Force” to deport 750,000 illegal immigrants from the UK.Now speaking on stage, she said: “To me and the shadow cabinet, the resulting policy decision is also clear. We must leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act.“I want you to know that the next Conservative manifesto will contain our commitment to leave. Leaving the convention is a necessary step but it is not enough on its own to achieve our goals.”She added: “This is the only way to end spurious claims from immigrants with spurious lawyers and excuses. This is the only way to allow the next British government, a Conservative government, to deliver a British borders plan in full.” Badenoch admits Tories have ‘mountain to climb’ as she ends speechKemi Badenoch has admitted the Tories have a “mountain to climb” as she closed her first conference speech as party leader.She told attendees: “This is a party under new leadership with a renewed purpose – we have listened, we have learned, and we have changed.”She described the Conservatives as the party that willl “strengthen our borders, restore our sovereignty and rebuild our prosperity”.She concluded her speech by saying: “Yes, we have a mountain to climb, but we have a song on our hearts, and we are up for the fight.”Tara Cobham5 October 2025 15:50Badenoch: Labour and Reform are ‘two sides of the same coin’The Independent’s political correspondent Millie Cooke reports:Labour and Reform are “two sides of the same coin”, Kemi Badenoch has argued, claiming neither of the two parties offer “the leadership that Britain deserves”.”You will have seen last week both Labour and Reform shouting at one another, trading insults instead of solutions. One flings around the word racist and will not be realistic about what is going wrong. The other whips up outrage, offering simplistic answers that will fall apart on first contact with reality. That is not serious politics”, the Tory leader said on Sunday.”Neither of those parties offers the leadership that Britain deserves. The truth, is that Labour and Reform are two sides of the same coin.”Both deal in grievance, both divide our country into tribes and labels. Both practice identity politics which will destroy our country. And I am saying no – no to division and no to identity politics.”Tara Cobham5 October 2025 15:37Badenoch insists leaving ECHR is ‘necessary step’ for ‘British border plan’Kemi Badenoch is outlining her pledge to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if the Conservative Party get into power at the next general election.The Tory leader told attendees at their party conference: “We must leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act.”She described it as a “necessary step”, claiming it is “the only way to allow a British government, a British Conservative government, to deliver a British border plan”.And she claimed doing so “would not mean that we lose any of the rights we cherish”.Tara Cobham5 October 2025 15:30Badenoch takes aim at Truss in promise to ‘learn from mistakes’The Independent’s political correspondent Millie Cooke reports:Kemi Badenoch has taken aim at previous Tory governments in her address to the Tory party conference in Manchester, saying: “Our mistakes on the economy and on immigration lost us the trust and confidence of the public”.She told party members that the public “won’t listen to us again until we show them we have learnt from our mistakes and changed”, adding: “We’ve got to do this and weve got to do this properly.”She continued: “What have we learnt? That you can’t have a budget that has £150bn of spending giveaways and billions more in tax cuts without saying where the money is coming from. We have to show we have learnt from the policy mistake of letting bureaucrats decide the immigration system. We failed to bring the numbers down and stop the boats, lets be honest, that happened on our watch. Yes we tried, but put simply, we didn’t achieve enough.”After years of responsible and effective government, our mistakes on the economy and on immigration lost us the trust and confidence of the public.”Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch delivers her opening speech on the first day of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on Sunday More

When Nigel Farage kicked off the party conference season for Reform in Birmingham he joked to party members: “It’s not all about me.”He pointed a line of 11 Reform UK football shirts with the names of leading party members on them, insisting “we are not a one man band, we are a full team”. Except when it came to buying one of those shirts, the only one available was the one with Farage’s name on the back.But with Farage propelling Reform to new heights in the polls, the traditional main political parties have taken it all to heart and decided that their conferences should be about them too.Farage has a lot to smile about More

Angela Rayner is facing questions after her taxpayer-funded bodyguards were seen helping her partner move belongings into her second home. The former deputy prime minister, who quit Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet after underpaying stamp duty on the purchase of a seaside flat, was accused of wasting public money. Pictures published in the Mail on Sunday showed two close-protection officers helping the former Labour MP Sam Tarry, Ms Rayner’s boyfriend, move bags and boxes in a BMW X5 between their two homes.Angela Rayner is facing questions over the use of her personal security detail More

Police are to be given greater powers to restrict repeated protests, the home secretary has announced, hours after hundreds were arrested at a Palestine Action demonstration in London. The event went ahead despite calls from Keir Starmer and others in the wake of the terror attack on a synagogue in Manchester during which two people were killed. The home secretary Shabana Mahmood said repeated large-scale protests had caused “considerable fear” for the Jewish community. Palestine Action protest More

Sir Mel Stride has issued a warning to any Conservative colleagues plotting leadership challenges, urging them not to risk derailing the party just as he says it is starting to get back on track.On the eve of the party conference, the shadow chancellor has told The Independent that voters “will never forgive” the Tories if they return to “self indulgent” leadership contests again – less than a year after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader.It comes after a dismal first year out of power for the party, which has continued to slip in the polls – despite Labour’s woes – while Nigel Farage and Reform UK have surged ahead and now sit as the most likely challengers to the government at the next election.The Conservatives’ downfall has promoted speculation that Ms Badenoch could face a serious leadership challenge, with shadow cabinet colleagues Robert Jenrick and Sir James Cleverly tipped as the main contenders to replace her, but Sir Mel has insisted a change at the top now would be counterproductive.“I think we’ve got to hold our nerve,” he said. “Look, nobody finds it comfortable to be where we are in the polls. “Nobody finds it comfortable to have lost the last election as decisively as we did and the difficulties we had in the more recent local elections. So I understand totally why people are uncomfortable with that, but what we’ve got to do is hold our nerve. Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride (Jeff Moore/ PA credit) More

Kemi Badenoch is an unknown politician who the public do not trust, Britain’s top polling guru has said. The Tory leader has been unable to halt the decline in support for her party, which collapsed over Partygate and Liz Truss’s premiership and has been falling ever since, Professor Sir John Curtice said. In a damning assessment ahead of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Sir John said: “The Tories are now barely more popular with those that voted Brexit than they are with the people who voted Remain, despite being the party that delivered Brexit.” Even Conservative supporters do not believe the party is ready for government More