Kemi Badenoch’s speech: Rebuilding Trust

Today [Thursday 16^th January 2025] Kemi Badenoch MP, Leader of the Conservative Party, has delivered her first major speech of 2025.  

In her speech, Kemi Badenoch said: 

Checked against delivery 

“We are all getting poorer.  

Politicians across all parties have not told the truth about this and instead keep prescribing quick fixes that are actually making things worse.  

This problem is broader than one party, one leader, or one period of government. 

Generations of leaders and entire ranks of senior managers have been trying and failing for a long time.  

Many have not been honest with the public about the challenges we face.  

And others have not even been honest with themselves. 

We are a great country, but we've lost our way. 

The truth is that Britain is failing to compete in a world that is changing. 

And it is not working for its citizens, certainly not the way it used to. 

Back in the 1980s it took just months to save up for a house deposit.  

Now it is over a decade and for many the dream of owning a home is impossible. 

Jobs which didn't require a degree twenty years ago now need two, loading up to £50,000 of debt on someone just starting out. 

One of my favourite quotes is from the economist Thomas Sowell. 

He says: "When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear." 

The Conservative Party is under new leadership. 

From now on we are going to be telling the British people the truth even when it is 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 our country out of this mess. 

It's hard not to feel sorry for the Labour government. 

It's hard because they've walked into some of the same traps that we did. 

Like assuming that you can just keep raising taxes and there'll be no consequences. 

But I don't feel sorry for them. Because as we saw last week when Keir Starmer labelled people calling for an inquiry "far-right” he is what that is wrong with politics. 

It's legalism not leadership. 

And Labour are having even worse problems than we did because they presented policy without a plan. 

Policies without a plan are not policies they're just announcements. 

That's why Labour are struggling. It's the old cliche that Failing to plan is Planning to Fail. 

Because when you haven't worked out what you're going to do in opposition, you will accept whatever you're given in government. 

That's why Rachel Reeves snatched winter fuel and taxing family farms. 

Those options were presented to us time and time again by officials and we rejected them, because they would hurt so many people for so little benefit. 

The Chancellor took them because she has no ideas of her own.  

It's the same with education. 

The schools bill that is going through Parliament now has one or two bits on safeguarding that may be good, the rest of it is worse than garbage. It is pure vandalism.  

And it's quite clear these aren't really Bridget Philipson's ideas either.  

They are a shopping list of all the complaints that the education unions had about schools right from the days of Tony Blair now wrapped up in a bill that is going to destroy the education of our children over the next five years.  

The public will never trust politicians unless we can admit our mistakes. 

Labour are making a lot of mistakes.   

But the difference between me and Keir Starmer is that he doesn't believe that he's ever made a mistake. 

I will acknowledge the Conservative Party made mistakes.  

And I understand why the British people, made it so clear in July, that they wanted a change.  

We were making announcements without proper plans. 

We announced that we would leave the European Union before we had a plan for growth outside the EU. 

We made it the law that we would deliver Net-Zero by 2050, and only then did we start thinking about how we would do that.  

We announced year after year that we would lower immigration but despite our efforts immigration kept going up. 

Those mistakes were made because we told people what they wanted to hear first and then tried to work it out later.  

That is going to stop under my leadership.  

If we are going to turn our country around, we're going to have to say some things that aren't easy to hear.  

Let's start with our problems.  

We think we are rich, but we are living off the inheritance that previous generations left behind. A complacency that Britain will always be wealthy and a refusal to live within our means. 

We owe it to that next generation to leave an inheritance for them and not mortgage their future to make our lives more comfortable. 

And that will demand the kind of tough soul-searching conversations we're not having right now. 

Energy supply so vulnerable, more vulnerable than ever and our energy is far, far too expensive when it should be secure, cheap, and plentiful.  

Demography is Destiny. People are having fewer children.  Our society is getting older, we are living longer and needing more support towards the end of our lives.  

Look at productivity - a shrinking group of people are working to support an ever-growing number of those who are unable or unwilling to work.  

The information age means it is easier than ever for rogue governments to destabilise us and for rogue companies and countries to steal our know-how. 

And no ifs, no buts. We simply cannot take all the millions of people who want to come here from elsewhere.  

Our country is our home, it is not a hotel.  

If people arriving don't want to integrate into British culture, they shouldn't be here. It is not controversial to say that.  

And that's why we need new Leadership. 

It doesn't matter what colour of government you have these structural problems need fixing. 

Government needs to focus on the things that matter.  

But it isn't because it is already doing too much – and it's doing it badly.  

This has to stop. Because the dream of every generation – that our children can have a better future than we did – is slowly dying.   

It's dying because as our problems have got more urgent our politics has got less serious.  

Since July, there has been more discussion in Parliament on Oasis tickets than on our £2.7 trillion debt pile. That has to stop. 

The young people I speak to are deeply despondent that their country is unable to provide them better opportunities let alone guarantee health, wealth, and prosperity. 

I share these concerns they motivate me every day. 

And I worry that our public services will continue to deteriorate   despite us paying ever-increasing taxes to sustain them.  

And I worry that our armed forces will not be upgraded fast enough for a darker and more dangerous world. 

That's why Labour have to course correct now. 

But, instead, we see them cancelling the good things we did and then doubling down on our mistakes. 

Labour are shrinking the economic cake right in front of us. Wrecking business confidence. Destroying jobs. They are suffocating the spirit of enterprise.  

Tiny bits of growth in the economy can hide millions of personal recessions.  

Life gets tougher as wages slip further behind another round of price rises.  

Millions of mortgages will be fixed at higher rates than necessary a direct result of Rachel Reeves's economic mismanagement. 

Millions of jobs will never be created because business owners decide it is just too hard and there is no point if the Chancellor and HMRC are just going to punish them for it. 

Labour treat business as a cash machine. 

As if its only purpose is to give them ever more money to satisfy their desires for ever more spending.  

Business success is treated with suspicion. A burden to be tolerated rather than celebrated. 

It doesn't have to be like this.  

Last Friday, I spoke with a group of workers in Derbyshire.  

They are the backbone of our country. They have little time for politics because they are trying to build a better life for themselves and their families.  

They want Government to do what it says it is going to – and they don't really ask for much more. 

One lady, a single parent, told me just how much impact, rising prices were still having.  

That it just seemed to be “one thing on top of another.”   

That “nothing seems to be getting better.”   

And it “feels like no-one's looking at it.” 

Our country is tired of politicians promising the earth but never having a plan to deliver it.  

They've seen it all before. And they aren't falling for it again. 

And part of this is because too many politicians haven't worked normal jobs or run proper businesses.  

Most of Starmer's Cabinet have barely even worked for a business, let alone built one.  

They've never ever had to live with the consequences of their mistakes.  

So, we need change. 

Change that actually sorts out our problems. 

Change that we should have done more of. 

Change that Keir Starmer is clearly not bringing. 

And that means the Conservative Party doing things differently under new leadership.  

First, we must restore trust. We will start by fulfilling the role the British people gave us: being an effective opposition. Fighting for common sense and truth.  Building a plan which actually delivers. 

We need the government to do well, in order for our country to do well. 

But they are failing on the basics. Labour may have a supermajority in Parliament, yes, they do, but they are fast losing their legitimacy in the country.  

And why?  

Because during the election Starmer hid that he doesn't want what the British people want. 

But everyone can see now the truth.  

He's a lawyer, not a leader. 

Second, we are absolutely going to keep saying what ordinary people think. We're not going to be quiet about things that are too important for our country. 

In the last two weeks, people have told us to be quiet about the decades-long scandal of rape gangs, because they're uncomfortable about potential racial and cultural motivations behind these crimes.  

Well, the Conservative Party is under new leadership. 

 We will not do that. Those victims have waited too long for justice. 

Let's take the Post Office: another scandal that needed addressing. Hundreds of postmasters wrongfully convicted. Decent lives ruined a national scandal. 

We were told it was being sorted that ministers didn't need to get involved. Yet the system was so slow. So, I made sure victims got justice with an unprecedented law to quash the unfair convictions of sub postmasters.  

Under my leadership our party is going to be about telling it straight.  

We need more people in politics who will do the right thing – and who will use their common sense even when they are attacked.  

When I was a Minister I took on extremists who were putting women and children in harm's way.  

They called me a transphobe.  

They even called me homophobic they said I was fighting culture wars as I tried to stop young children from receiving irreversible transgender procedures without any evidential basis.  

That same ideology led to male rapists being put in female prisons, this was one scandal other politicians were too scared to tackle and tried to ignore. I fought and I won. 

We will not ignore. 

Third, we are going to push Keir Starmer to do the right thing. For the good of the country, we can't afford for Labour to fail.  

We will back Keir Starmer when he does the right thing. I don't care who gets the credit.  

We just have to start getting the country back on track. 

Finally, we are going to tell people why Conservatism matters.  

We have gone through many iterations over these past 14 years. At times, it felt like our core beliefs had become secondary. 

It left people disillusioned.  

It made the task of governing harder.  

And it didn't work.  

No more. 

To rebuild trust we have to show how Conservatism improves the lives of British people.   

We will rediscover the idea that everyone contributes towards society not just calculates what they can take out of it.  

We will again be the party of meritocracy. 

We believe that if you do right by your community, family, and society, you will succeed. 

And if you don't, you likely won't.  

Our society is treating people who do best, badly; and the people that do worst, well. 

Everything is upside down.  

That's the opposite of fairness.  

Fairness is the idea that the ledger of life reflects effort, agency, and contribution.  

You know what helps working people?  

It's world class schooling that allows them to master complex topics, doesn't sugar coat and prepares them for the ups and downs of the future.   

You know what helps working people? 

Being able to walk down the high-street and not see anti-social behaviour or casual disregard of our neighbourhoods because local bureaucrats have given up and crime is not punished.  

You know what helps working people? 

Ensuring that they don't spend January until June earning taxes for the government. 

You know what else helps working people? 

A government that demands higher standards from public services.  

That's able to discern between public spending that is vital, moral, and fair and public spending that is wasteful and neglectful.  

That's my Conservatism. 

A Conservatism which deals with the problems of today. 

Which prepares us for the challenges of tomorrow. 

A conservatism which leaves a better legacy to the next generation of young people   young people who will be around long after those in power now have left the stage. 

Real Conservatism is inter-generational.  

It is guardianship.  

It isn't a quick buck for today.  

It's the guarantee that tomorrow will be better, richer, and safer. 

And why does this matter so much to me? 

It's because I know what it is like to have something and then to lose it. 

I don't want Britain to lose what it has.  

I grew up in a poor country and watched my relatively wealthy family become poorer and poorer despite working harder and harder as their money disappeared with inflation.  

I came back to the UK aged 16 with my father's last £100 in the hope of a better life.  

So, I have lived with the consequences of terrible governments that destroy lives and I never, ever want it to happen here. 

I became an adult fairly early, living as a lodger with a friend.  

Studying part time at an FE college to get my A-levels while working at McDonald's to pay my way. 

I know what it is like to feel alone.  

I know what it is like to have to decide between paying for food or paying a bus fare. 

I did not study politics.  

I studied engineering and after that I went to night school to get another degree.  

So, I see politics the way most people see it as an outsider. 

Not having the perfect language or the perfect presentation but wanting to fix things. 

I am fascinated by how to make things work and I can see how our country is just not working for ordinary people out there. I'm determined to change that. 

So, the Conservatives are under new leadership. We are going to do something different. 

And this is my message to people watching today. 

We need a government that supports, not punishes those who do the right thing. 

We need to rebuild the state to be more focused, more efficient and – most importantly – more effective. 

We need to make our country more resilient, secure, and prosperous.  

Where hard work is rewarded.  

Where children can have a better life than their parents.  

It may not feel like it right now, but our country's best days are ahead of us.  

Britain is a land of opportunity not a country to apologise for.  

So, if you want real plans rather than announcements, join us.  

And if you want a better country for our children, join us.  

Together, we can fix the damage that Labour is inflicting.  

Together, we can make politics work again for the first time in a generation.  

The Conservative Party is changing.  

We are under new leadership we are back in the service of the British people,   

And we are going to give you your country back.”