Robert Jenrick’s thoughts are just “my thoughts repackaged”, Kemi Badenoch has said in what appears to be a swipe at her main rival ahead of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this weekend.
It comes as the beleaguered Tory leader faces devastating approval ratings and a growing number of defections to Reform UK – with Mr Jenrick being seen as the frontrunner to replace her.
Ms Badenoch has promised a “more fun than usual” party conference this year, with the promotion of open debates between party members on the stage.
“I think people should just speak freely, no matter what the consequences are. I don’t mind people straying a little bit off piste,” she told The Spectator.
Asked about Mr Jenrick, who is generally very vocal with his own opinions, the Tory leader said: “Yes, but most of them are my thoughts repackaged”.
She added: “I don’t mind that he says what he thinks. The advantage of having a leadership contest is that you’ve kind of already said what you think.
“Repeating it, which is what Rob tends to do, is not new information.”
Despite the Tory party sitting at least 10 points behind in the polls, Ms Badenoch also told The Spectator she has “quite a lot of self-belief”.
“I certainly wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” she said. “So reinforcing myself, thankfully, is not something that I need to do.”
Asked about her first year in office, which has seen Nigel Farage declare Reform UK the main opposition party after huge success in the polls and at the local elections, the Tory leader said: “I basically inherited a distressed asset and my first job was to just make sure we didn’t go bust.
“Most of my first three to six months were spent on that. I just couldn’t get out there much. The opportunity cost was perhaps not doing much media.”
A seat-by-seat YouGov poll published earlier this month showed that the Tories would face a disaster scenario if an election were held today, being left with just 45 MPs – putting them behind Reform UK, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, which the poll put at 78 MPs.
Ms Badenoch also denied that she is sceptical of the climate crisis, despite her party’s new pledge to scrap landmark legislation in favour of “cheap” energy.
Ahead of the party’s annual conference this weekend, Ms Badenoch has announced a policy to scrap the Climate Change Act.
The legislation was brought in by the last Labour government in 2008 and committed the UK to cut climate emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, with five-yearly carbon budgets to keep the country on track towards the goal.
But Ms Badenoch said: “I’m not sceptical about climate change. That’s very obviously happening. But there’s been a lot of deception around the net zero agenda and I really want to expose that.’
“Net zero has become nothing more than a slogan … We need to do what we can sensibly to tackle climate change but we cannot do it alone. If other countries aren’t doing it, then us being the goody-two-shoes of the world is not actually encouraging anyone to improve.”
