Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her approach to the economy would be “completely opposite” to that of Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on his first day on the job, Badenoch gave a first glimpse of his policy priorities, including reversing VAT increases for private schools.
He said the Conservatives had “got a lot wrong” before their historic election defeat, including on immigration and tax, but refused to offer a “post-mortem” of their predecessors and claimed the Partygate scandal was “overblown”.
With appointments to the shadow cabinet expected in the next few days, Badenoch said he wanted to show the party was united with a meritocratically elected front bench.
Asked if he would reverse the chancellor’s decision to increase national insurance (NI) contributions, Badenoch said he was not the chancellor and had “few” MPs.
“We will not be able to oppose anything in terms of making laws,” he said, adding that he was only “making the argument that increasing taxes in this way … we are all poor”.
However, when asked directly whether he would reverse the increase in VAT on private schools, Badenoch was sure, saying “yes, yes, I would … because it is a tax on aspirations, but it will not generate money” “against our principles”.
He also told Ms Kuenssberg that “it’s not government that creates growth, it’s business that creates growth”, adding that this was “exactly the opposite of what Rachel Reeves is doing”.
Badenoch, who is the party’s first black leader at Westminster, said she disagreed not only with Reeves’ economic policies, but also with the way she negotiated becoming Britain’s first female chancellor in 800 years.
He said, “I think it’s best if we get to the point where the color of your skin is less surprising than the color of your eyes, or the color of your hair.
“I’m amazed that Rachel Reeves keeps talking about how she’s the first woman chancellor, which I think is a very, very glass ceiling in the Labor Party, which is probably going to be broken.
“Nothing is as important as what other women in this country have achieved.”
He was also critical of previous leader Rishi Sunak, saying he had lost trust with voters because “immigration and tax promises were not kept and this is what we need to change”.
Badenoch resigned from Boris Johnson’s cabinet over his handling of the Chris Pincher affair, which he said led to the public thinking “we no longer talk or see them, we are there for ourselves”.
But on the Partygate scandal, he said Johnson had walked into a “trap”.
“A lot of the things that happened at Partygate weren’t why I resigned – I thought it was too much,” he said.
“We don’t have to make a fixed penalty notice… which we don’t want with our principles.”
When asked to apologize for the economic turmoil under Liz Truss, Badenoch said he wanted to “draw a line” under the mistakes of previous leaders and refused to go through a “post-mortem” of every Conservative leader “over the last 14 years”.
However, Badenoch said his focus was on rebuilding trust and creating a perception of unity within the party, although he said it was “very difficult”, especially when “not everyone wants to serve”.
He added: “People don’t trust us for many reasons – we don’t keep our promises but we also don’t seem to get along.”
Dealing with the loss of Conservative voters for UK Reform, led by Nigel Farage in the last election, Badenoch denied that he would only offer voters “more equality”.
He said: “Nigel Farage and the success of Reform is symptomatic of the Conservative Party in my view, not being clear and consistent enough about its values and about how to use those Conservative values to deliver to the British people.
“If we get this right, then I think people will start to see that the Reform is nothing but a spoiler for the Conservatives and just make more and more Labor governments.”
