Latest news with #Badenoch
Glasgow Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Glasgow Times
Starmer criticises Badenoch as she claims PM is ‘irrelevant' on world stage
The Prime Minister slapped down Mrs Badenoch's dismissal of him as 'irrelevant' on the global stage as she launched a barbed attack on Sir Keir while he gave a statement on the two international events to the Commons. Her tone was rebuked by one of her own backbenchers, who admitted he could have the whip withdrawn for his criticism. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Mrs Badenoch had said: 'He has evaded Prime Minister's Questions for two weeks, only to come here to tell us what we already heard on the news. This is a weak statement from a weak Prime Minister which can be characterised in two words; 'noises off'.' She added: 'We used to be a strategic player on the global stage, advancing Britain's interests with confidence, and now we are on the sidelines.' She later said: 'Over the last few weeks, historic events unfolded in the Middle East, and at every stage Britain has been out of step with the US and out of the loop with Israel.' 'The Prime Minister may have finally returned to this House after a fortnight away, but in truth he is all at sea. Irrelevant on the world stage, impotent in the face of rising illegal immigration, and now with 126 of his own MPs all openly undermining his authority, his Government is incapable of making even the smallest changes to bring down the cost of our ever-expanding welfare bill,' she went on to say. In response, Sir Keir said: 'There has never been a more important time to work with our allies, and to be absolutely serious in our response. That response was unserious. 'To suggest that at a time like this that the Prime Minister attending a G7 summit and the Nato summit is avoiding PMQs is unserious. 'What happened at Nato yesterday was historic. It was very important at a time like this that Nato showed unity and strength with a commitment to the future, not just to the past. That took a huge amount of work with our allies over the last few days and weeks. 'We have been centrally involved in that, crafting the final outcome, and we were recognised as having done so. I am proud that we helped put that summit into the right place, and the world emerged safer as a result.' He added: 'For the leader of the Opposition to belittle it just shows how irrelevant she and the party opposite have become. They used to be serious about these issues, they used to be capable of cross-party consensus, and all of that is slipping away.' Conservative MP for the Wrekin Mark Pritchard said: 'Can I agree with the Prime Minister that as far as possible in this place, it would be better to keep partisan politics out of national security issues? 'And who knows, I may get withdrawn for saying that, but so be it, there are things that go beyond party politics.' Sir Keir had earlier said it was 'frankly embarrassing to suggest I shouldn't have been at Nato or the G7', adding: 'And I think her backbenchers recognise it.' Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey also criticised Mrs Badenoch, saying: 'It is astonishing, and I share his surprise, that it's now Conservative policy not to attend the G7 and Nato.' In his statement, the Prime Minister said the ceasefire between Iran and Israel had created an opportunity for peace, and said the pause in missile strikes between the two countries could also allow for a ceasefire in Gaza. He said: 'There is now a window for peace. We urge Iran and Israel to honour the ceasefire and seize this opportunity to stabilise the region. That is our priority, to get Iran back around the negotiating table with the US.' He added: 'Our national security strategy is clear, in this … era of radical uncertainty, faced with growing conflicts, state threats, illegal migration, organised crime and terrorism, the only way to respond to these issues is by being strong both at home and on the world stage, by pursuing a foreign policy that answers directly to the concerns of working people, and that is the approach I took to Nato and to the G7.' MPs heard the Government plans to spend 4.1% of GDP on defence by 2027, rising to 5% by 2035. Sir Keir said it would lead to a realignment of national security plans and economic policies in a way not seen since the Second World War. However Mrs Badenoch asked how the Government was going to meet its spending targets. She said: 'The Government's aspiration to get spending on national security to 5% is just hope. The reality is Labour does not have a plan to get to 3%, it is all smoke and mirrors.' Mrs Badenoch continued: 'It is one thing to talk about spending money on planes and infrastructure, making announcements about reviews, but it is another to be clear where the money comes from and how it will be spent efficiently to secure the defence of our nation.' Sir Keir replied: 'We are the party that has increased defence spend to the highest level since the Cold War, 2.5%, they talked about it. We did it.' He added that in a recent interview Mrs Badenoch had said the Conservative government had examined how to raise defence spending, but 'couldn't make the numbers work'.
Western Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Western Telegraph
Starmer criticises Badenoch as she claims PM is ‘irrelevant' on world stage
The Prime Minister slapped down Mrs Badenoch's dismissal of him as 'irrelevant' on the global stage as she launched a barbed attack on Sir Keir while he gave a statement on the two international events to the Commons. Her tone was rebuked by one of her own backbenchers, who admitted he could have the whip withdrawn for his criticism. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Mrs Badenoch had said: 'He has evaded Prime Minister's Questions for two weeks, only to come here to tell us what we already heard on the news. This is a weak statement from a weak Prime Minister which can be characterised in two words; 'noises off'.' She added: 'We used to be a strategic player on the global stage, advancing Britain's interests with confidence, and now we are on the sidelines.' She later said: 'Over the last few weeks, historic events unfolded in the Middle East, and at every stage Britain has been out of step with the US and out of the loop with Israel.' 'The Prime Minister may have finally returned to this House after a fortnight away, but in truth he is all at sea. Irrelevant on the world stage, impotent in the face of rising illegal immigration, and now with 126 of his own MPs all openly undermining his authority, his Government is incapable of making even the smallest changes to bring down the cost of our ever-expanding welfare bill,' she went on to say. In response, Sir Keir said: 'There has never been a more important time to work with our allies, and to be absolutely serious in our response. That response was unserious. 'To suggest that at a time like this that the Prime Minister attending a G7 summit and the Nato summit is avoiding PMQs is unserious. 'What happened at Nato yesterday was historic. It was very important at a time like this that Nato showed unity and strength with a commitment to the future, not just to the past. That took a huge amount of work with our allies over the last few days and weeks. 'We have been centrally involved in that, crafting the final outcome, and we were recognised as having done so. I am proud that we helped put that summit into the right place, and the world emerged safer as a result.' He added: 'For the leader of the Opposition to belittle it just shows how irrelevant she and the party opposite have become. They used to be serious about these issues, they used to be capable of cross-party consensus, and all of that is slipping away.' Conservative MP for the Wrekin Mark Pritchard said: 'Can I agree with the Prime Minister that as far as possible in this place, it would be better to keep partisan politics out of national security issues? 'And who knows, I may get withdrawn for saying that, but so be it, there are things that go beyond party politics.' Sir Keir had earlier said it was 'frankly embarrassing to suggest I shouldn't have been at Nato or the G7', adding: 'And I think her backbenchers recognise it.' Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey also criticised Mrs Badenoch, saying: 'It is astonishing, and I share his surprise, that it's now Conservative policy not to attend the G7 and Nato.' In his statement, the Prime Minister said the ceasefire between Iran and Israel had created an opportunity for peace, and said the pause in missile strikes between the two countries could also allow for a ceasefire in Gaza. He said: 'There is now a window for peace. We urge Iran and Israel to honour the ceasefire and seize this opportunity to stabilise the region. That is our priority, to get Iran back around the negotiating table with the US.' He added: 'Our national security strategy is clear, in this … era of radical uncertainty, faced with growing conflicts, state threats, illegal migration, organised crime and terrorism, the only way to respond to these issues is by being strong both at home and on the world stage, by pursuing a foreign policy that answers directly to the concerns of working people, and that is the approach I took to Nato and to the G7.' MPs heard the Government plans to spend 4.1% of GDP on defence by 2027, rising to 5% by 2035. Sir Keir said it would lead to a realignment of national security plans and economic policies in a way not seen since the Second World War. However Mrs Badenoch asked how the Government was going to meet its spending targets. She said: 'The Government's aspiration to get spending on national security to 5% is just hope. The reality is Labour does not have a plan to get to 3%, it is all smoke and mirrors.' Mrs Badenoch continued: 'It is one thing to talk about spending money on planes and infrastructure, making announcements about reviews, but it is another to be clear where the money comes from and how it will be spent efficiently to secure the defence of our nation.' Sir Keir replied: 'We are the party that has increased defence spend to the highest level since the Cold War, 2.5%, they talked about it. We did it.' He added that in a recent interview Mrs Badenoch had said the Conservative government had examined how to raise defence spending, but 'couldn't make the numbers work'.
Spectator
3 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
‘It's Liz Truss territory': how bad are things for Kemi Badenoch?
Around 5 p.m. on Monday one of Kemi Badenoch's aides was having a drink with a friend in the Two Chairmen pub in Westminster. Over a pint of IPA he explained how the Conservative leader was planning to thrust herself more forcefully into the public conversation. 'We know the pace needs to quicken,' he admitted. 'Reform are sucking up the political oxygen.' Badenoch inherited a 'party on its knees', the basics of which needed overhauling. 'We'd love to be doing more fun viral social media stuff, but Kemi is sitting down and getting on with it.' That same afternoon, just over 100 yards away, outside the Westminster Arms, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, who has impressed MPs with his energetic harrying of the government and a series of fun viral social media clips, was having a drink with Tom Skinner, a former star of The Apprentice (catchphrase: 'Bosh!') who wants to be the Tory candidate for London mayor. A video of the two was soon on Jenrick's social feeds. 'He looked like the leader interviewing a candidate,' a witness says. All this happened after an Ipsos poll put the Tories on 15 per cent, 19 points behind Reform, their worst showing since the firm began polling in the 1970s. MPs are no longer asking whether they could win the next general election but whether the party is facing extinction next year, when voters are expected to deliver another hammer blow in the local, Scottish and Welsh elections. Shadow cabinet members have seen private polling showing that the Conservatives could be wiped out in the 2029 general election. Badenoch's personal satisfaction rating of 49 with Ipsos makes her the most unpopular leader of the opposition ever after six months. At this stage William Hague was on 30, Ed Miliband on 10 and Keir Starmer himself just above zero. 'The polls are absolutely horrific,' says a shadow minister. 'Kemi's personal polling is in Liz Truss territory. There is now no precedent for it. People say 'Let Kemi be Kemi' but there are increasingly few don't-knows and they are moving against us. We are being frozen out of the national conversation.' Dozens of MPs believe that if she is still in charge next spring there might be very little left. In recent council by-elections in King's Lynn and West Norfolk – a seat still held in the Commons by the Tory James Wild – the Conservatives failed to even field a candidate. Reform won both. In Mansfield, they secured just 9.4 per cent of the vote in a council seat once held by Ben Bradley. Reform got 61.6 per cent. Another former Downing Street strategist says: 'The best plan at this point is probably to try to salvage what we can. Fight to retain 80 to 100 seats and hope to be relevant when the next government is forming.' Badenoch's team sees progress, after Starmer was forced to U-turn on holding a public inquiry into rape gangs and over the winter fuel allowance, issues she had championed. She plans to launch a new policy board every week until the summer recess, including a tax commission and one on 'social cohesion'. She will use the party conference in October to unveil her plans for whether and how to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Party fund-raising has outpaced that of Reform and Labour in the past two quarters. Allies cling to the dictum of David Canzini, a No. 10 strategist under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, who tells colleagues: 'It takes two years before the public starts to forget your record.' They hope that means Badenoch can make headway in the polls by the summer of 2026. But despite better performances at Prime Minister's Questions, many Tories think Badenoch is unable to channel her undoubted intellect into something that is palatable to the average voter. When Palestine Action vandalised aircraft at Brize Norton, she tweeted: 'The full force of the law must come down on those responsible.' Nigel Farage called for the group to be 'proscribed'. Jenrick demanded a 'ban'. 'That's what they would say in the pub,' an admirer notes. 'She talks in riddles.' A Conservative peer says: 'She'd be an amazing thinktank director.' A recent, more pithy summary of her vision for Britain, delivered at a dinner with 25 business leaders, needs to be worked on. One of those present says: 'She implied she wants the same, but less crap, which didn't exactly inspire.' Another senior Tory concluded: 'She seems to be auditioning to be a Spectator columnist' – a noble calling, but not her desired destination. The shadow chancellor Mel Stride is next in the firing line. 'The widespread view is that [Rachel] Reeves is one of the most unpopular politicians in Britain,' says one of those who want a change of leader, 'and he's barely landed a punch against her.' Insiders claim that after a recent flat Commons performance by Stride, Badenoch voiced her frustration to a staffer. Colleagues recall a time, during the last leadership contest, when Stride was privately of the view that Badenoch was 'unfit' to lead. These noises off are denied by Tory high command. Badenoch is 'enjoying working with Mel' and they agree on the need to be the party of fiscal responsibility. Two hours after The Spectator put questions to Badenoch's team about their relationship, they revealed that Stride would take on Angela Rayner at PMQs on Wednesday. The shadow chancellor, it is only fair to say, did achieve cut-through with his critique of Reeves's 'spend now, tax later' spending review. One Badenoch aide has even begun to use the phrase 'Unshell the Mel' as a homage to 'Uncork the Gauke' – George Osborne's instruction when a reassuringly dull figure needed to be dispatched to the TV studios. Nonetheless, shadow cabinet colleagues say both Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, and Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, are eyeing Stride's perch. 'Neither is right for it,' says a fellow frontbencher. 'Angling for positions in the shadow cabinet right now is like applying for a promotion on the Titanic.' While Badenoch is expected to reshuffle her top team before the end of the year, she is likely to wait until Starmer has redrawn his cabinet. The bigger question is whether she is removed. Party rules decree that only after 2 November, Badenoch's first anniversary in the job, could MPs force a vote of no-confidence, if 36 of the 120 current MPs write a letter to the chairman of the 1922 Committee. Those who plan to strike include young MPs who want a future and those in seats where their local councillors were wiped out in May. Ross Thomson, a former Aberdeen MP who briefly ran Badenoch's leadership campaign in Scotland, defected to Reform on Tuesday, saying Farage 'offers the real change we need'. Reform is now expecting such an influx of Tory defectors after next May's elections that they might impose a deadline. 'We should tell people there won't be a lifeboat if they wait too long,' a Reform official says. Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, whose husband has already joined Reform, is considering the jump. Jenrick is now getting unlikely support as Badenoch's replacement. On 10 June he dined in a Mayfair restaurant with David Cameron, Osborne and fellow Cameroon Lord Barker. 'Cameron now thinks Jenrick should take over when the time comes,' says a close ally of the former PM. Cameron's views are pertinent because he has twice been in to help Badenoch prepare for PMQs. Jenrick is also 'in touch' with Boris Johnson, the 'smash glass in case of emergency' option for the leadership, sparking speculation that Jenrick would secure a peerage for the former prime minister. Some of Johnson's old team, however, talk of him replacing Bob Blackman, the chairman of the '22, and returning to parliament. Johnson's friends say he has not decided whether he wants to return. Privately he refers to the prospect as 'a series of overlapping impossibilia' and has said: 'There is more chance of a baked bean winning Royal Ascot' than him becoming leader again. Scholars of the Johnson lexicon will note that such formulations were deployed as a smokescreen when he was previously plotting his ascent. Multiple sources say Johnson has thought about his offer to the party and the country. 'There is a five-point plan,' says a former minister. This would include a mea culpa for the 'Boriswave' which saw net migration soar past 900,000 a year. 'He would blame Priti [Patel],' his home secretary, a source says. But many younger MPs see immigration as a deal-breaker for Johnson, and believe that Jenrick, who resigned from Rishi Sunak's government over it, is the more credible replacement leader. What could he even do? One of those who is helping to bring critics together says: 'If we can get noticed and start to say the right things, we can make some progress in the polls. Once it starts to reverse, we will have the momentum – Farage knows that if he doesn't have a poll lead by year three he won't be able to get defectors. Farage may be untouchable but we need to attack the sketchy people around him.' However, most of Badenoch's critics believe there will have to be some sort of understanding with Reform, which will be difficult. Witnesses say that when Andrea Jenkyns, the Reform mayor of Lincolnshire, entered the NFU tent at the Lincolnshire show last week she greeted Robbie Moore, the shadow farming minister, with the words: 'Hello, arsehole.' If you thought the Tory civil wars were brutal, they might just have been the starter.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kemi Badenoch says Tories will support Sir Keir Starmer's welfare cuts
Kemi Badenoch has offered Conservative support, in order to help the government pass its controversial welfare changes. The Tory leader told Sky News she would be asking for three commitments from Sir Keir Starmer, if he wants to use Conservative votes to pass the reforms to disability benefits, which have triggered an unprecedented rebellion of more than 100 Labour MPs. Ms Badenoch said: "I'm just making it very clear to Keir Starmer that if he will make commitments at the despatch box to meet our conditions which are to reduce the welfare budget, to get people into work and not to have tax rises, then we can support his bill. "The bill is a bit of a mess. It needs some work. It looks like it's been rushed for Rachel [Reeves] to fix other problems that they've got. But our welfare budget is far too high, and we really need to bring it down." PM warns UK must prepare for war at home - follow latest The prospect of the bill passing on Conservative votes would outrage Labour MPs. An amendment they have tabled says they cannot support the bill because it would drive disabled people into poverty, and they are concerned about whether people losing benefits would find work. Around 119 Labour MPs have now signed the amendment, while Sadiq Khan has become the most senior Labour figure to call for a "rethink". The mayor of London has warned that the proposed cuts would "destroy [the] financial safety net" for "too many disabled Londonders". Welfare Secretary Liz Kendall has tried to reassure Labour MPs about the changes. But the rebels are hoping the government will water down their proposals in order to get Labour support. The prime minister, speaking at a NATO summit in The Hague on Tuesday, insisted the government would press ahead. Keir Starmer told Sky News: "We've got to get on and make that reform because the options are: leave the system as it is, trusting people and not helping them, that's not a Labour option. The Labour option is to reform it and make it fit for the future. So we're going to press ahead with these reforms." A vote is looming next Tuesday with Labour MPs deeply concerned about the changes which will see 370,000 current PIP claimants lose benefit, and affect 3 million people in total. The rebels hope the government will climb down. One of them, Neil Duncan-Jordan, the MP for Poole, told Sky News that relying on Conservative votes "is not a good look for any government". He added: "If you can't rely on your own party, I think you're in a serious place." Responding to Ms Badenoch's offer, a Labour spokesperson said the government was "elected to deliver change" and that it's "prepared to take on the challenges holding the UK back". They added: "We're fixing the abysmal mess the Tories left behind, and MPs can either vote to keep a broken failed welfare system that writes people off, or they can vote to start fixing it. "Next week's bill is a test for the leader of the opposition as to whether her party has learned anything at all by being roundly rejected by Britain."
New Statesman
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
Farage and Badenoch's Iran headache
Photo byForeign policy crises present a dilemma for opposition parties. At moments when national security is at stake, there is an opportunity to put aside party differences and back the government, showing a united front to the world and indicating a level of mature statesmanship. Alternatively, there is also an opportunity to point-score, striking while the government is distracted. What they choose depends hugely on the crisis in question, and how the party's response might be perceived. Ed Miliband's pivotal decision not to back David Cameron on UK military action in Syria in 2013 was primarily driven by fierce opposition to further involvement in the Middle East within a Labour Party still scarred from the Iraq War – but it's hard to imagine the calculation that losing a parliamentary vote of this nature would damage the Prime Minister's authority didn't feature at all. When it came to Britain's response to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Keir Starmer did not hesitate in backing Boris Johnson in full. Whatever other criticisms Starmer threw at Johnson (and, later, Rishi Sunak), Britain's position on Ukraine was not one of them. Perhaps he knew that a different Labour leader might have taken a different tack, and sought to distance his party as far as possible from that perception. What then to make of the reactions from the Conservatives – and, indeed, from Reform – to the government's handling of the current geopolitical turmoil? Both Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage have, to different degrees, chosen to attack Labour's response to the Israeli and American action in Iran. Badenoch in particular has thrown herself into the discourse. First, before the missiles from Donald Trump's heralded B-2 bombers had hit the Iranian nuclear sites, she published an op-ed on Saturday night not only backing Israel's military assaults whole-heartedly, arguing 'Iran is a direct threat to Britain', but criticising the UK government for being less enthusiastic about it. Attacking what she called a 'weak and morally deficient Labour government', she wrote that 'Keir Starmer and David Lammy vacillate and equivocate, and Lord Hermer imposes his own interpretation of international law'. She continued: 'We are no longer trusted and are viewed as unreliable. Lammy's confused antics diminish us on the global stage.' Badenoch could not have known about Operation Midnight Hammer at the time of writing. She could not have known that the US had already chosen to strike Iran and to bypass Britain entirely in doing so, launching its missiles not from the shared UK-US Diego Garcia airbase on the Chagos Islands, but from Missouri, giving Downing Street only a cursory heads-up. But it's a theme she returned to on Monday, telling veteran Conservative historian Charles Moore at an event at Policy Exchange that she suspected the UK was being 'cut out' of foreign intelligence briefings because our allies do not trust the Labour government. She offered no evidence for her claim, but had previously argued the UK had been 'left out of the planning of the US strikes on Iran', implying the lack of warning was down to Britain's lukewarm position. Nigel Farage struck a similar tone at his own event on Monday, suggesting Britain has alienated itself from the White House. 'I'm not sure America is going to need our help with Iran. I think we've hindered them already,' he argued, speculating that Diego Garcia would have made more sense to launch an attack had the UK been onboard. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe These positions make a degree of sense, simply because the government's response to Operation Midnight Hammer is so garbled. As George wrote yesterday, the Prime Minister finds himself stranded, unable to either support or condemn US action – and, as Megan Kenyon has pointed out, he is paralysed by the left of his party and risks splitting his entire political movement. In the Commons on Monday night, David Lammy was in a similar bind, answering justifiable questions from MPs about the UK's position and whether the strikes were legal with the stonewalling statement: 'We were not involved. This is not our legal context.' The vibe from Starmer and his team seems to be that they hope the whole geopolitical quagmire will simply de-escalate and go away. Hardly a vote of confidence for British leadership. But Badenoch and Farage face their own pitfalls. For a start, the British people have little appetite for UK engagement in the Middle East (Ben Walker has analysed the public's scepticism for aiding Israel in its fight against Iran), and have no love for Trump either. Support among Brits for the US president took a sharp fall this year after his jaw-dropping meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky. It nose-dived even among Reform voters – by far the group most supportive of Trump in general. There is also polling evidence suggesting Nigel Farage's favourability ratings fell due to the unpopularity of his closeness with Trump. (The New Statesman's Freddie Hayward asked the Reform leader yesterday if his stance on UK support for Operation Midnight Hammer had anything to do with his friendship with Trump. Farage did not look amused.) Coming down fiercely on the side of Trump, seemingly in opposition to the UK government, makes both the Tory and Reform leaders hostages to fortune if the ceasefire agreed last night ends up disintegrating and the situation escalates further. Who knows what the US president might do next? More broadly, there are dangers to playing politics on security matters – even if the government position is a mess. It risks making both the Conservatives and Reform look unpatriotic, too caught up in their own games of point-scoring at a time of crisis for grown-up politics in the national interest. Finally, there's the blunt reality that it seems to matter not one jot whether the UK supports the US or not – Trump is not looking to Britain for guidance, advice or permission. All the same, it's hard to imagine how telling the world our government is weak, unreliable and not to be trusted helps the UK's standing on the global stage – or the reputation of the opposition leader. This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here [See also: Can the ceasefire hold?] Related
