Kemi Badenoch vows 'battle for the soul of this nation' in Tory conference keynote

Kemi Badenoch has closed the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham with a keynote speech declaring a “battle for the soul of this nation” against Andy Burnham’s Labour government.

Opening her address, the Tory leader told the hall: “There is a fight coming in British politics. A fight we have not seen in this country for more than half a century.” She accused Labour of believing “your income, your pension and your savings are theirs to take”, arguing instead “that what people earn belongs to them, not government”.

On stage, she set out plans to cut taxes funded by welfare savings, slashing inheritance tax and repeating the conference pledge to halve employers’ national insurance for workers aged 21 to 24 to 7.5 per cent. She restated the party’s plan to scrap the so-called mansion tax on English homes worth more than £2m.

Badenoch warned Britain was “running out of money and out of time to put it right”, declared Burnham “is not going to be prime minister after the next election”, and mocked Conservative defectors to Reform as an “export boom of drama queens”. She joked of former PM Keir Starmer: “Now he’s not even an MP. Life comes at you pretty fast.”

Sources: The Times live blog, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/kemi-badenoch-national-insurance-conservative-party-conference-2026-latest-news-cj9jjhfh7 ; The Sun live blog, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/40605215/kemi-badenoch-tories-tax-cuts-slam-burnham/