Kemi Badenoch's First Anniversary as Leader

Under new leadership, Kemi has rebuilt our party, around conservative principles. A leader with a backbone, a strong team and a clear plan for Britain.

• After the defeat in 2024, we faced a choice: retreat into slogans, or rebuild around values. We chose to rebuild.
• The Conservative Party now stands once again for what made Britain strong in the first place - responsibility, fairness, competence and pride in our nation.
• At the same time as we rebuild, we have stayed united, raised more money than the other parties combined and exposed the hypocrisy of Labour’s behaviour and the weakness of their policies, forcing u-turns on winter fuel payments, grooming gangs and welfare cuts.
• Over the past year we have given the country a serious alternative to Labour’s weakness: a plan for a stronger economy and stronger borders. The Conservatives have set out detailed, costed policies to cut waste, lower taxes, control immigration and reward work. We’ve shown how to fix welfare, stop the boats, cut energy bills and make work pay again.

 The Conservatives are an effective opposition:

• Forced the Government to hold a national statutory inquiry into rape gangs. Labour let down the victims of vile rape gangs by brushing the issue under the carpet. We called for a proper, targeted national statutory inquiry into rape gangs operating in this country – Labour voted against that three times before U-turning (The Conservative Party, Conservatives force a vote on national inquiry into child rape gangs, 9 January 2025, link).
• Forced the Government to stop their cruel Winter Fuel Payment cut. The Conservatives believe in security and dignity in retirement, which is why we led the opposition to Labour’s betrayal of pensioners when they cut 10 million Winter Fuel Payments to fund pay rises demanded by the trade unions. This was only after the Prime Minister forced his MPs to vote three times in favour of restricting the Winter Fuel Payments (Hansard, 10 September 2025, Vol. 753 Col. 742, link).
• Led the opposition to the Chagos Surrender Deal at every step of the way. The Conservatives believe in a strong national defence but Labour’s Chagos Surrender Deal will make Britain weaker and cost £35 billion. That is why we have introduced a Bill to cancel the Surrender Deal (BBC News, 2 March 2025, link).
• Forced the resignation of Angela Rayner after the Prime Minister failed to find the backbone to do the right thing. After the Conservative Party Chairman had written to Angela Rayner twice raising questions over her property arrangements, the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards opened an investigation into her property ownership and tax affairs – which found that she had breached the ministerial code, forcing Angela Rayner to resign as Housing Secretary and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (Kevin Hollinrake, X, 24 August 2025, link; BBC News, 29 August 2025, link; IAMS, Advice from the Independent Adviser to the Prime Minister, 5 September 2025, link; BBC News, 5 September 2025, link).
• Led the fight to protect farmers from the Family Farm Tax. Labour pulled the rug out from farmers by pausing the Sustainable Farming Incentive with no warning and then U-turned after Conservative pressure. We have led the calls for the Government to reverse their Family Farm Tax, which we will reverse after the next election (EFRA, Blog, 11 March 2025, link, Hansard, 12 May 2025, HCWS626, link).

Our plan for a stronger economy and stronger borders:

• We will abolish stamp duty entirely on primary residences. Stamp duty land tax, which is paid when you buy a property or land in England and Northern Ireland, will be abolished for primary residences. This policy will apply irrespective of purchase price for primary residences. It will not apply to additional properties, properties purchased by companies, or by non-UK residents.
• We will cut business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure. 250,000 businesses will benefit from the relief, delivering substantial savings that can then be reinvested in better premises, more staff and lower prices, and lifting thousands out of business rates altogether. The relief will be 100 per cent, capped at £110,000 per business.
• We will introduce a new Golden Economic Rule. Under our ‘Golden Economic Rule’, for every pound saved, half or more will go to reduce the deficit and half will go on cutting taxes or spending to boost the economy.
• We will cut energy bills by £165 through our Cheap Power Plan by axing the Carbon Tax and old renewable subsidies. With the freedoms provided by repealing the Climate Change Act, the Conservatives will axe the Carbon Tax (consisting of UK ETS and Carbon Price Support) to save £75. We will also scrap the Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) scheme which pays subsidies to old renewable schemes which will save £90.
• We will ensure under a new system that no one who has entered illegally will ever be able to get asylum or make any other protection claim in this country – their claim will simply not be heard. This will apply to small boat arrivals. They will be immediately deported to their home country if possible, or to a safe third country such as Rwanda if not. This will happen within hours or at most a few days. This will have a powerful deterrent effect. As Australia proved in 2013, and the US is proving today, illegal immigrants in Europe will not cross to the UK if they know they will be immediately removed. No one who has been removed will be allowed to return legally to this country.
• We will deport all illegal entrants and all foreign criminals, who will never be allowed to return. To achieve this, a detention and processing centre will be needed initially with a capacity of up to 1,000 for most periods, and exceptional capacity of a further 2,000 if needed. This will be achieved by expanding an existing facility, funded as above from savings across the asylum system. We will also lower the criminal threshold for automatic deportation to any criminal conviction (with exceptions only for the most trivial penalties such as parking or minor speeding offences). Foreign criminals must be deported directly from prison as soon as they become eligible for deportation, and must not be released onto our streets where they would pose a danger to the British public.
• We will withdraw from the ECHR and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (ECAT), and repeal the Human Rights Act. This will end many of the legal claims that prevent border control and enable many of the policies in our BORDERS plan.
• We will introduce our BORDERS plan:
  • Ban asylum claims for illegal entrants.
  • Out of the ECHR, ECAT and repeal HRA.
  • Removals Force established, to remove 150,000 per year.
  • Deport all new illegal arrivals within a week, and all foreign criminals.
  • End the Immigration Tribunal, Judicial Review and legal aid for immigration cases.
  • Returns agreements backed by visa sanctions.
  • Support our allies to prevent illegal entry to Europe.
• We will hire 10,000 extra police officers. To combat Labour’s cuts to policing, we would hire 10,000 extra police officers over three years as part of our plan to crack down on crime and support policing. This would cost £800 million per year once fully rolled out.

Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the Conservative Party, said:

‘This first year of my leadership has been about rebuilding. Rebuilding our party, our principles and our plan for Britain. After defeat in 2024, we faced a choice: retreat into slogans, or rebuild around values. We chose to rebuild. The Conservative Party now stands once again for what made Britain strong in the first place - responsibility, fairness, competence and pride in our nation.

At the same time as we rebuild, we have stayed united, raised more money than the other parties combined and exposed the hypocrisy of Labour’s behaviour and the weakness of their policies, forcing u-turns on winter fuel payments, grooming gangs and welfare cuts.

I’ve spent this year giving the country a serious alternative to Labour’s weakness: a plan for a stronger economy and stronger borders. The Conservatives have set out detailed, costed policies to cut waste, lower taxes, control immigration and reward work. We’ve shown how to fix welfare, stop the boats, cut energy bills and make work pay again.’