I won’t be blown off course, vows Kemi, as she slaps down defectors ‘having tantrums’ and new Tory centrists

Kemi Badenoch said she would ‘stay the course’ in holding Labor to account as she took aim at Tories who have recently defected to Reform and Conservatives who are trying to pull the party back to the centre.

In a speech on Wednesday, Ms Badenoch likened the recent wave of high-profile asylum seekers to children ‘throwing tantrums’ to the Reformation and singled out the Conservatives as ‘the only party on the right’.

This week former home secretary Suella Braverman defected to Nigel Farage’s party, making her the third Tory MP to join Reform in less than two weeks.

Ms Badenoch had previously sacked Robert Jenrick from his position as shadow justice secretary and lifted the whip after learning of his plans to defect to the Conservative Party ‘in a way designed to be as damaging as possible’.

The Conservatives claimed that Romford’s Conservative MP Andrew Rosunull resigned from his Conservative Party post three days later, while former Conservative Chancellor Nadim Zahawi defected after being refused an appointment to the Lords.

In a harsh rebuke to her former colleagues on Wednesday, Ms Badenoch said: ‘To those who have left, who did not actually agree with our policies, I will say this: ‘I’m sorry you didn’t win the leadership contest.

This week, former home secretary Suella Braverman defected to Nigel Farage’s party, making her the third Tory MP to join Reform in less than two weeks.

‘I’m sorry you couldn’t find a job in the shadow cabinet.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t get into the Lords, but you don’t offer a plan to fix this country.

‘This is a tantrum disguised as politics.’

He added: ‘There are people in politics who don’t really know what they are doing or why they are doing it. They just want to be in the world. They want to be at the top. They want access, attention, and advancement. And when they don’t get their way, they create drama.

‘What we need is people to help get Britain back up and running, and that means we need to be a truly Conservative party.

‘So I won’t apologize to those who walked away because they didn’t like the new direction. ‘We just want the Conservatives.’

While Ms Badenoch insists Mr Farage is doing his ‘spring cleaning’ for himself by acknowledging Tory MPs who have been ‘repeatedly kicked out of government’, a recent YouGov poll shows one in nine Britons view Reformation more favorably after the departures.

According to the data, a fifth (22 percent) of those who voted for the Conservative Party in the 2024 general election said recent divisions had made them view Reform more positively.

Mr Farage told the Daily Mail it showed that Reformation’s appeal was ‘widening’, despite some pointing to his party stagnating in recent opinion polls.

He added: ‘The Conservatives in government have put us through years of psychodrama. They’re done.’

But Ms Badenoch said the Conservatives under her leadership were ‘about the future, not the past’ and were not re-fighting the battles of 2006 or 2016.

It comes as Conservative figures Sir Andy Street and Baroness Ruth Davidson this week launched ‘Prospect’, a group trying to pull the Conservative party towards the centre, to capture millions of ‘politically homeless’ voters.

Conservative figures Sir Andy Street and Baroness Ruth Davidson this week launched ‘Prospect’, a group trying to bring the Conservative Party to the centre, to capture millions of ‘politically homeless’ voters.

Mr Street was mayor of the West Midlands between 2017 and 2024, while Ms Davidson led the Scottish Conservative Party between 2011 and 2019.

In response, Ms Badenoch warned that those pushing other agendas were ‘unhelpful’ and that the Conservatives needed to ‘move away from any factionalism or grouping’.

The Conservative Party leader also called on the Prime Minister to apologize for his role in conducting criminal investigations into soldiers wrongly accused of causing deaths in Iraq, the Telegraph revealed on Wednesday.

He said it was ‘an absolute disgrace’ that veterans were being harassed in the courts and that the Conservatives were ‘doing everything’ they could to protect them.

‘Whatever Labor is doing with its legislation it is doing because it does not believe in our veterans (whether it is Keir Starmer or Lord Advocate General Hermer); Where they had a pro bono opportunity, not a taxi rank, they went to help people who were acting against the national interests of our country.

‘These veterans are risking their lives to defend us and I want them to know that the Conservative Party will always have their back.’