Kemi Badenoch has said that Reform UK’s leadership are not “real conservatives” or “serious people”. The shadow housing secretary made the remarks during a question-and-answer session with Conservative members on the second day of the annual Tory conference in Birmingham.
Mrs Badenoch has been a vocal critic of Reform, which outflanked the Conservatives on the Right at the last election and won just over four million votes, largely at the expense of Rishi Sunak’s party.
Asked if the Liberal Democrats or Reform were a bigger enemy, Kemi Badenoch replied: “Anyone who is not a Conservative has got to be defeated.
“And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe Reform are real conservatives. They like the Liberal Democrats are not serious people. And by that I mean the Reform politicians. The Reform voters are our voters. But actually the Reform manifesto did not add up. They want a big state, actually, when you look at some of the things they are talking about, the state would balloon.
“Reform are not serious, but it is now our job to make sure that we squeeze them out and push them away from the bit of the political spectrum they are on. They are parking our tanks on our lawn and we need to get them off.”
