Conservative party conference 2025 live: Badenoch donor defects to Farage’s Reform ahead of her speech – UK Times

The Conservative Party was “too soft” and “too eager to please everyone” in government, the party’s chairman Kevin Hollinrake has said.

Speaking to the Tory conference, Mr Hollinrake praised the virtues of the party being resilient.

He went on to tell the audience in Manchester: “Let’s be honest. Despite the good, the good we did at times, we made mistakes.

“At times we were too soft. We forgot about tough love. We were too eager to please everyone. In politics, you can’t please all the people all the time and it’s a mistake to even try.

“Look at the country today. We are led by a weak Prime Minister who blames everyone but himself for his failures, the economic doldrums we are experiencing, the limbo we are in today. They are purely down to him.”

Conservative Party activists held a minute’s silence at the beginning of the party conference in Manchester in memory of the two people killed in the terror attack at a synagogue on Thursday.

Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said: “Thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives and with the entire community.

“Antisemitism is a stain on our nation’s soul. Stand in grief and solidarity with the Jewish community, I ask everyone to join me in a minute’s silence in their memory.”

It is “utterly irresponsible” to advocate for withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Northern Ireland secretary has said.

Hilary Benn accused the Conservative Party of advocating a policy that could undermine the Good Friday Agreement.

It comes after Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said every Conservative candidate must sign up to leaving the ECHR or face being barred from standing at the next election.

Mrs Badenoch kicked off the annual Tory conference in Manchester with a pledge to leave the ECHR as part of a plan to deport 150,000 people a year from the UK.

Reform has also advocated for a withdrawal from the ECHR.

In a statement on social media, Mr Benn said: “Until recently, it was completely unthinkable that a party aspiring to govern the United Kingdom would countenance putting that agreement at risk, given that ECHR membership is one of the GFA’s founding pillars.

“Or that they would seek to put the UK in the same group as Belarus and Russia as the only three countries in Europe which would not be signatories to the convention. Utterly irresponsible.”

A former donor to Kemi Badenoch’s leadership campaign is reportedly backing Reform UK.

Mark Gallagher gave Mrs Badenoch £2,000 for her leadership campaign last October and left the Tories around two months ago, Sky News reported.

A Reform UK source said: “Nigel (Farage) and Mark have been friends for a long time.

“We understand he is very disenchanted with the Conservative Party,” the source added.

A Conservative source, however, said Mr Gallagher was briefly an adviser on Mrs Badenoch’s leadership campaign and pointed to his past affiliations with other political outfits, including the Brexit Party.

The Tories have seen a slew of defections to Reform UK, with London Assembly Member for Havering and Redbridge Keith Prince jumping ship on the eve of the party’s conference.

Mr Gallagher has been contacted for comment.

The Conservative Party’s four-day conference has officially kicked off in Manchester.

From 2pm, a welcome will be given by conference chairman Stewart Harper, followed by party chairman Kevin Hollinrake, Scottish Conservatives leader Russell Findlay and Welsh Conservatives leader Darren Millar.

At 2.45pm, party leader Kemi Badenoch will give her welcome speech.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she was “very disappointed” at the collapse of a major Chinese spying case and denied there was any ministerial interference.

The case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry was dropped on September 15, sparking criticism from Downing Street and MPs from across both sides of the political aisle. Both men had denied the allegations.

The Sunday Times reported the decision came after senior Whitehall mandarins met to discuss the trial, including national security adviser Jonathan Powell and the Foreign Office’s top civil servant Sir Oliver Robbins.

In order to prove the case under the Official Secrets Act, prosecutors would have had to show the defendants were acting for an “enemy” – but Mr Powell reportedly revealed the Government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which does not use that term to describe China.

The Sunday Times reported this meant Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser due to give evidence for the prosecution, would be unable to say Beijing was an enemy.

Ms Mahmood insisted there was no Whitehall meeting to discuss the case and no ministerial involvement, although the Sunday Times report focused on the actions of officials, rather than ministers.

The Home Secretary told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “I don’t recognise that reporting about a meeting, I’m not aware of any such meeting taking place.”

The Conservatives would support Labour’s proposal to expand policing powers to deal with persistent protests, Kemi Badenoch has said.

She told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “Of course we will support them.

“But what took them so long?

“And the issue, from my perspective, is why should the public trust a Home Secretary who not that long ago was protesting herself, lay down, closed a Sainsbury’s supermarket because it was stocking Israeli goods?”

She added: “We believe in free speech, but that has to be within the bounds of the law.

“If people are using protest to intimidate, if they’re using protest to incite violence, then no, it’s not protest.”

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said the economy “will be on fire” if Reform UK wins the next general election.

She told GB News: “Nigel Farage wants to spend loads and loads of money on welfare.

“You look at the plans he’s talked about, our economy will be on fire if he gets in. None of it makes sense.”

The Independent’s whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

On Sunday morning, Shabana Mahmood warned of a problem with integration in the UK.

Now, in an interview with Times Radio, she has warned of a “rise not only in antisemitism but in other forms of hatred as well.

“There are clearly malign and dark forces running amok across our country.

“It’s a challenge for governments of all stripes to work out how to deal with these issues without placing more pressure, and frankly more unwanted burden and responsibility, on minority communities.”