Jumping to 'easier party' won't work, Badenoch tells defectors

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called Reform UK "a one-man band" without the expertise or the strength to run a government

Kemi Badenoch has dismissed concerns about her party's direction, telling former members who have defected to "easier party" Reform UK that if they can't deal with difficult times, they can't deal with government.

Reform has 185 councillors across the East of England and the majority are former Conservative supporters.

Last month, the former Bedfordshire Tory MP Nadine Dorries joined the party.

Badenoch spoke to BBC East after the latest defector, Suffolk county councillor Philip Faircloth-Mutton, claimed the Conservatives had become "an irrelevance" .

But the Tory leader - speaking ahead of her party conference in Manchester - insisted that only her party was competent enough to deliver for the country.

Former Bedfordshire MP Nadine Dorries has been one of the most high profile defectors to Reform UK to date. She said Conservative members "need to think the unthinkable and look to the future"

Until last year, the Conservative Party dominated the politics of the East of England, holding nearly all the Westminster seats and running most of the local councils.

The surge in support for Reform UK, largely at the expense of the Tories, has probably been noticed here more than anywhere else.

Labour has also been affected - with a councillor's defection to Reform at Stevenage Borough Council.

Three Reform MPs won their East of England seats at the 2024 general election (Nigel Farage in Clacton, Rupert Lowe in Great Yarmouth and James McMurdock in South Basildon & East Thurrock) - although Badenoch is quick to point out that two, Lowe and McMurdock, had since left the party.

Reform is running both councils in Northamptonshire and has councillors on more than 20 local authorities in the region.

As MP for North West Essex, Badenoch knows that if her party can't win back support in this region it will struggle everywhere else.

So how worried is she by the seemingly large number of local Tories leaving her party for Reform?

"I'm not worried," she immediately replies.

"The fact of the matter is that we made mistakes in government; my job is to draw a line under that.

"Deciding you're going to jump to an easier party because they're doing well in the polls, that's not going to work.

"I would also say that if people aren't tough enough to deal with difficult times then they're not tough enough to run a government."

She says coming up with workable policies takes time and she has an experienced team working on solutions to some of the big challenges facing the UK.

"We are the only party that is both competent enough and tough enough to deliver a stronger economy and stronger borders. We are the ones doing the thinking while the other parties are just talking."

But she suggests supporters will need to be patient.

"Remember, the last oppositions [in the UK] have been [there] for 14, 13 and 18 years. This is not going to happen overnight."

'An irrelevance'

Suffolk councillor Philip Faircloth-Mutton has joined Reform UK after 19 years as a Conservative

Philip Faircloth-Mutton gave up his cabinet role at Suffolk County Council in order to switch from Conservative to Reform UK.

A party member for 19 years, he started campaigning when he was 15, chaired his local Conservative association and has been a councillor in the Sudbury area for four years.

"During the Conservatives' period in government we had flatlining productivity which has led largely to people feeling hard up at the moment - they are also not happy about the legacy they left on immigration," he explains.

"Their new leader and my former party are an irrelevance. They're not standing up for the common sense values and concerns which my residents have."

When asked what sort of concerns he means he talks about fairness, the cost of living and pride in the country.

"I feel that Reform are the ones pushing for genuine change and common sense solutions to genuine problems."

I asked Badenoch what she made of the councillor's comments.

She says Reform is popular because "they say things which people want to hear which don't stand up to scrutiny".

"We are the grown ups in the room," she hits back.

"Making announcements is easy, a slogan is not a solution and lots of people can't tell the difference and I'm going to show them the difference."

'Green firms in the east must keep investing'

Kemi Badenoch has arrived in Manchester for the start of her party conference

One of Badenoch's big announcements at this conference is a promise to scrap the government's net zero targets, something which has dismayed environmental groups and raised concerns about the impact on the east where a lot of green and renewable energy projects are under construction.

She says local firms should not be worried.

"They should continue their investments. We are not cancelling contracts or anything, we are just saying that the targets which have been set are not working."

And she denies that scrapping the targets might take away the incentive for companies to invest in green projects.

"People want to go green, they want a better environment but [at the moment] you're setting targets which businesses can't meet and you're making electricity so expensive that it's easier for businesses to pack up and people are going to lose their jobs."

This is one of several distinctive policies which the party is unveiling this week to try to excite voters and reverse its declining opinion poll ratings.

There are important local elections next May. That will be the first serious test of her leadership.