Donald Trump deserved US mid-term election thrashing, says Kemi Badenoch

Abbie Llewelyn, Press Association political staff

Kemi Badenoch has said Donald Trump deserved to be thrashed in the US mid-term elections as she criticised him over the Iran war, tariffs, and threatening Canada and Greenland.

The Conservative leader said the election results were “entirely self-inflicted” in an interview with Independent editor in chief Geordie Greig for The Talk Show, adding: “Voters want results.”

She went on to say that the US president “doesn’t meet the standards a politician at that level, a statesman, should meet” in the way he talks about people and “always wanting to get dirty in terms of insults”.

Mrs Badenoch also branded Mr Trump’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House “awful”.

She even said she would have been content if Democratic nominee Kamala Harris had won in 2024, saying: “I like them both equally. Make of that what you will.”

The Tory leader said of Mr Trump: “He came in with this extraordinary coalition, Latinos, he had more black voters than any other Republican, and what’s the first thing that he does?

“Tariffs and then talking about Greenland and Canada and I think a lot of people were wondering, ‘what are you doing?’

“Tariffs are bad for the cost of living, they’re not good, then you have a war in Iran, which, I understand the justification, Iran is an enemy of this country, we don’t want them getting nuclear weapons, but where’s the plan?”

Asked if he deserved to be thrashed, she said: “Well, yeah. He has not been acting in the way that I would consider conservative.

“Where is the push for free markets and better trade and more enforcement of trade rules, rather than protectionism, America first, the squabbling with allies? That’s not what conservatives do.”

She added: “We need to separate President Trump from the United States. The special relationship is with the country.

“President Trump is very charming in person, but you see the way that he talks about journalists, about individuals, it doesn’t meet the standards that I think a politician at that level, a statesman should meet – always wanting to get dirty in terms of insults and so on.

“When he was rude about Keir Starmer… I didn’t like that at all.

“What they did to President Zelensky in the White House was awful.”

Mrs Badenoch also criticised former UK prime ministers in the previous Tory governments.

While refusing to “name and blame” the Conservative Party’s former leaders, she said they were guilty of “gimmicks, mistakes and short-termism”, adding: “Everyone makes mistakes. Obviously, the leaders were responsible for most of them. Immigration was too high.”

Asked whether she meant the so-called “Boriswave” of immigration, she said: “People know who the prime minister was then.”

On Liz Truss’ mini-budget, she said: “You can’t just announce £150 billion bailing out people’s energy bills and £45 billion of tax cuts with no spending cuts at all. Those are the wrong way of doing things.”

On Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, she insisted that his explanation of the £5 million crypto donation “doesn’t add up”.

She said: “One of the things going wrong for him was that he pretended to be this everyman.

“A lot of his supporters… don’t understand how he’s getting £5 million and they’re not able to pay their energy bills.”

She added: “His story doesn’t add up.”

The Tory leader was also adamant she would never serve in a government with Mr Farage as prime minister, saying: “No, because he would not be good for this country. I simply wouldn’t.”

Meanwhile, she dismissed some of Reform’s ideas, such as a recent proposal to nationalise Poundland as “bonkers”, but claimed Mr Farage did her a favour with the defection of Robert Jenrick, which she said was like defusing an “unexploded bomb”.

Leaks from the shadow cabinet stopped overnight, she said, joking: “The only thing I haven’t done is written a thank you card to Nigel Farage for taking these problems away. I’ll write it in his Christmas card.”

On Prime Minister Andy Burnham, she said he is more “fun” than Sir Keir Starmer, but that this “makes him more dangerous because he wants to please everybody”.

Branding Mr Burnham a “foot in mouth” politician, she said: “He says things first and then thinks about it later.”

Declining to to apologise for calling Bridget Phillipson “spiteful” over VAT on private school fees, she said: “Spiteful. What’s wrong with that?”

She added: “She hurt many, many children. They had to leave their schools, which closed down. It was class war. So yes, I will call it like it is.

“We’ve spent a lot of time dressing things up in fancy words where most of the public don’t understand what we’re talking about.”

Mrs Badenoch also said she has “never” experienced racism in Britain.

She told The Talk Show: “Never. That is the honest truth. It’s one of the reasons I say that this is an amazing country. This is not a racist country.

“Of course there are racists. There have been people who have said and done things which I would’ve thought, yes, this is prejudice.

“But my definition of racism is people who would deliberately disadvantage you because of your race, not somebody making an off-colour joke.”

She added: “Did anyone ever use the N-word to me? No. Never. Only black people – and not in a hostile way.

“Have I had people who I think may have disliked me because of the colour of my skin? Probably, but I can’t prove it because they didn’t show it.”