Badenoch warns Farage in power would be ‘very bad for this country’
Kemi Badenoch has said it would be “very bad for this country” if Nigel Farage gained power, accusing the Reform UK leader of making empty promises that would unravel in government.
The Conservative leader issued the warning as her party dropped to fourth place in YouGov’s latest polling, falling behind Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK for the first time since 2019.
“I hope not – it would be very bad for this country,” she said, when asked whether Mr Farage could plausibly take power.
‘Hard road’
Speaking to Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Mrs Badenoch said: “Nigel Farage is someone who is going to say whatever he wants in order to get into power. I am taking the hard road – I’m not going to do that.
“He’s making the same mistake that Keir Starmer made of making promises, and then they’ll get into government and can’t deliver it.”
Moments later in a separate interview with the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Mrs Badenoch said she would not respond to dire polling numbers with short-term political fixes.
Polls
“I could have come rushing out with policies to chase the polls but that’s the wrong thing to do,” she said. “What we need to do is deliver a proposition that’s going to change the country for the better.
“It’s going to take some time because we just lost an election. The public don’t come back to the Opposition straight away – the Government are doing so badly that people are going to protest parties.
“I can’t say how long that’s going to take. I need to use this time as wisely as possible.”
Mrs Badenoch’s comments come as Reform UK surged to first place in the latest YouGov voting intention survey, on 29%. Labour followed on 22%, the Liberal Democrats on 17%, and the Conservatives on 16% – their lowest ever rating with the pollster.
It is the first time the Tories have placed fourth in a YouGov ranking since the final weeks of Theresa May’s premiership in 2019.
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She’s right in that Farageform would be very bad for the country but whilst shadowing them to grab back their voters, she is admitting that her party would be also as proven over the decades. All she needs to do is grab back some of those voters to split the vote and sink the pair of them. That would do some kind of good for the country.
After all Truss was so good…
No s*it, Kemi.
But what do you mean by ‘this country’? I know for sure that Farago and his cohorts would be ‘very bad’ for my country. And that ain’t the Disunited Kingdumb.
The Tories are dead in the water at the moment – out of the equation. What needs to happen now in both Westminster and the Senedd is progressive parties laying the ground for future cooperation in order to keep Reform out. Next year’s Senedd election, in particular, looks likely to be a hung parliament. Hopefully, Plaid will gain the most seats but will still have to work with another party to form a stable government. Terms and conditions for the possibility of any coalition should be considered now not then. We don’t want days, weeks or even months of negotiation,… Read more »
Not interested in U K but if she says very bad for Wales yes they would be just her Tory party was and Labour is now none would and do nothing for Wales
Well blow me down. Right on one thing. BUT then the US far right have claws into the Tory party so her mob in power will also be bad. Her meeting with vance and some serious money in oil and climate change denial is kept very quiet.
Her silence when musk attacked two MP’s should be a warning, they have a deal to attack Labour at every turn, even if Labour magage to fix 14 years of Tory destruction.
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/03/18/kemi-badenoch-ditches-net-zero-target-after-taking-donations-from-funders-of-tufton-street-climate-denial-group/
Yet she barks to his tune. Tories have enabled much of what Farage has wanted and often used hate against the courts, the pressand played the victim like Farage. So perhaps she should look in the mirror a little deeper
A Badenoch/Farage coalition would be like finding out by your GP that you’ve got an STD , or Sadistic Tory Disease. No amount of antibiotic cream would remove that stigma. Ych a fi! 🤮
Well well, I find myself agreeing with something that Kemi Badenoch says. Now to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
It’s terrible for the UK just having him anywhere near politics. He’s just an embarrassment.