Kemi Badenoch has admitted she is still learning how to lead the Conservatives after seven months in the job, amid dire poll ratings for the party. The Tory leader on Friday said “it takes quite a while to learn how to do the job”.
It came a day after Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, promised she “will get better”, with the Conservatives tumbling in the polls and falling to fourth in a Scottish by-election on Thursday.
“She will get better through time at the media, she will get better through time at the dispatch box at PMQs,” Mr Stride said.
Asked about his comments on Friday, Ms Badenoch said: “People often assume that the minute you come into a job like being leader of the opposition, that you are ready to go.
“It actually takes quite a while to learn how to do the job, and what I have been saying is that every week it gets better and better.
“Every week I have more experience, and this is what every leader of the opposition has found from Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron.”
She added that lots will change before the next general election, highlighting the outbreak of Covid and the war in Ukraine in the last election cycle. “There is going to be so much more that people are going to see, not just from me, but from the Conservative Party. We were down at the last election, but we are not out.”
It came as the Tory leader shifted her party decisively in favour of pulling Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a stance her leadership rival Robert Jenrick has long called for the Conservatives to adopt.
Ms Badenoch said the convention has become a “sword to attack democratic decisions”, resulting in Britain being unable to police its borders and deport foreign criminals.
“This use of litigation as a political weapon is what I am calling lawfare. It isn’t just damaging our security, it’s also damaging our prosperity,” she said.
She stopped short of vowing to adopt leaving the ECHR as policy, but said “I do believe that we will likely need to leave”.
And she said she had tasked a team of legal experts to look at how Britain could pull out of the convention and what the impact would be, promising to announce the results at the party’s conference in October. Ms Badenoch all but guaranteed a set-piece moment at the Manchester meet in which she will formally call for Britain to ditch the ECHR.
Delivering her speech in Westminster, Ms Badenoch also sought to stress that the Conservatives are still the main opposition to Labour, despite the party’s dire performance in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. The Tories won just 6 per cent of the vote, with Labour fending off Reform UK and the SNP to win the seat.
Answering questions after a speech on Friday, Ms Badenoch dismissed Reform as a “protest party” and said claims it was the real opposition were “nonsense”.
Describing Reform as “another left-wing party”, she said: “What they’re trying to do is talk this situation into existence.
“Labour is going to be facing the Conservative Party at the next election and we’re going to get them out.”
