New Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has hit out at Labour’s Rachel Reeves for going on about being the UK’s first female Chancellor, calling it “astonishing” that Reeves plays up her gender while other women have achieved “far more.”
Badenoch, the first black leader of a Westminster party and fourth female Tory leader, didn’t hold back in her first interview since taking the top spot in the Conservative Party over the weekend
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Badenoch said she was proud of her background but didn’t want her skin colour to “be the thing that ends up being talked about.” She added, “We live in a multiracial country, and that’s great, but we should see ourselves as one British people, not divided into groups.”
The Tory leader turned up the heat on Reeves, saying, “It’s amazing how much she talks about smashing a glass ceiling. For me, it’s a very, very low one if that’s the biggest achievement she’s boasting about. Women in this country have done far more significant things.”
Badenoch’s comments come after Reeves opened her Labour conference speech celebrating her “historic” role, vowing to “write the work of all women back into our economic story.” At her first Budget, Reeves told MPs she was “deeply proud” to be Britain’s first female Chancellor, encouraging girls to “dream big” and break barriers. She has since mentioned it several times in interviews and speeches.
In the interview Badenoch said she wasn’t impressed with Labour’s tax-heavy Budget either. She blasted Reeves’s “tax-and-spend” strategy, predicting it will “make Britain poorer.” When asked if she would reverse Reeves’s £25 billion National Insurance (NI) hike, Badenoch replied, “Raising taxes in this way isn’t going to grow our economy; it’s going to make us all poorer.” She made it clear she’d argue against the Budget.
The new Tory leader also committed to reversing Labour’s VAT raid on private schools, calling it a “tax on aspiration.” She vowed to lead with “principles, not just throwing out policies” and unite the party after a hard-fought leadership contest against Robert Jenrick.
Badenoch also took a swipe at the Boris Johnson era, calling his handling of the Chris Pincher scandal “too far.” However, she labelled partygate “overblown,” saying, “We shouldn’t have issued fixed penalty notices, those went against our principles.”
With her outspoken start, Badenoch is already making waves. The question now is: will her bold stances help reshape the Conservative Party?
