Kemi Badenoch promises to defeat Farage and Starmer in exclusive interview

EXCLUSIVE: Kemi Badenoch insists she can 'face off' the double threat of Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage and restore the Tory party to its former glories.

Speaking to the Daily Express, the favourite to replace Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader vowed to stop the Labour leader from “ruining” Britain and win back “let down” voters who ditched the party at the election in favour of Reform UK.

And she promised to “always fight” for what our readers believe in - having pride in the country, patriotism and Brexit.

The former Cabinet Secretary is vying with Robert Jenrick for the Tory crown, with bookmakers expecting her to be victorious on November 2.

In a wide-ranging interview Ms Badenoch says she has the “vision” to rebuild the Tories following the “rock bottom” election result in the summer.

In the short term, she warns that many British values are “under attack” from left wing parties.

Addressing Express readers directly she said: “Daily Express readers have known that I have always fought for what they believe in, whether it was pride in our country, patriotism, stopping those people who want to talk the UK down and fighting for Brexit, making sure Britain holds its place in the world as a number one nation that is a shining light and helps make the world a better place.

“And many of those values which we share are under attack by the left.

“We need a leader who can both deal with the left wing that is Keir Starmer but also the split on the Right which Nigel Farage brings with the Reform party.

“I can do both, I can face off that threat that is coming from Farage and stand up to Keir Starmer who is going to ruin our country.”

Sir Keir is firmly in her crosshairs and she blasted the Labour leader and his party for being “hypocritical” because of the recent freebies scandal in which the Prime Minister bagged himself free Taylor Swift tickets, clothes and a corporate box to watch his beloved Arsenal football team play.

“A lot of people saw what happened during the partygate period as politicians being in it for ourselves and I found that very upsetting and I believe that was quite unfair on Boris. “Partygate was unfair and as we have seen with Keir Starmer they are a hypocritical party. “The freebie scandal and so much of what has been going on shows they are not serious, they are in it for themselves and we need to expose them and I will do that.”

Such rhetoric has won the North West Essex MP a fervent following among Tory grassroots members, those who are now voting to decide the party’s next leader.

Ms Badenoch, 44, has run her campaign - under the title Renewal 2030 - with the purpose of rebuilding the Conservatives.

Broadly speaking she wants low taxes, lower immigration, higher defence spending - all of which, she says, need a stronger economy.

But unlike her rival Mr Jenrick, who has repeatedly trumpeted the need to tackle illegal migration and leave the ECHR, specific policies are not that important to Ms Badenoch at the moment.

“The first step is to heal ourselves, then win back trust and then get a consensus on good centre-right policies,” she said.

“That’s what I want to do - in that order. Not policies and then hoping will like the policies and then vote for us, that’s too gimmicky.

“We have one chance to get this right because Labour can get their act together very quickly and then we’ll be in trouble.”

She does have strong views about two specific policies close to this newspaper’s heart.

Railing against Labour’s “wrong” decision to cut the Winter Fuel Allowance, the former Business Secretary, says Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves have used a “blunt instrument” to target pensioners.

“It was definitely wrong for them to do that,” she said.

“That was the big policy change they must have known they were going to do before the election in which case they should have spoken about it.

“If they had not planned to do that before the election and decided to do it afterwards then they need to accept that they have not thought this through.”

Ms Badenoch said she believes millionaires should not be getting the winter fuel payment and that there need to be more sophisticated ways of means-testing it.

“But there are a lot of people who have had it taken away from them, who should have it.

“We need to improve means-testing, to make it a lot more sophisticated than it is now. It cannot just be that you're not in extreme poverty so we’re going to take it away. That is not means-testing, that is a blunt instrument.”

And in a thinly-veiled swipe at Mr Jenrick, who said at the weekend that Sir Keir should be held personally responsible if pensioners freeze to death this winter because of the cut, she said: “Politicians need to take responsibility for their actions but I would be quite worried about over personalising every single incident of every single thing going wrong, that is dangerous.

“Politicians will need to make tough decisions and there will often be consequences but they need to be held to account.”

On the issue of assisted dying Ms Badenoch, says she supports it “in principle” but thinks Labour are rushing it through parliament.

The Daily Express is campaigning for assisted dying to be made legal in the UK with our Give Us Our Last Rights crusade.

But the MP, who has personal experience of seeing a relative die in a “not very nice way”, says serious questions must be addressed first.

“I worry that they are rushing it through, we haven’t had a proper debate. I am somebody who does support assisted dying in principle - I call it choice at the end of life,” she said.

“Do I think Labour can deliver it properly, no, do I think the system is ready for it, no, so let’s see what’s inside this bill but we do need to have a debate about assisted dying.”

The mother-of-three, who was born in London, but grew up in Nigeria before returning to the UK aged 16, places family at the heart of many of her decisions.

Getting a grip on the nation’s social care crisis, which she says politicians have “run away from”, is an important issue for her.

As is protecting free TV licences for the over-75s and overhauling the “costly” licence fee in general.