Ministers have ‘heads in the sand like ostriches’ on security threat – Badenoch

Dozens of supermarkets across Europe were hit by a cyber attack on Monday, as hackers raised the temperatures of their fridges to cause disruption to food supplies. There was no apparent impact on British shops.

Mrs Badenoch also highlighted a recent cryptocurrency hack worth six billion US dollars, said to be linked to North Korea, as well as reports that “hackers targeted power and heating plants in Poland, shutting down equipment at one facility supplying heat to 50,000 people”.

She also referenced reports on Tuesday that Russian warships were intercepted in the English Channel.

Delivering a speech in central London, the Conservative leader said: “Unconventional warfare is here now. We need to start getting ready. We need to get serious.

“What’s Labour doing? Nothing. They’re not doing anything.

“They’ve got their heads in the sand like ostriches. They don’t want to know what’s going on.

“Anything that looks like a plan gets kicked into the long grass.

“Well, are we going to do that? No. Absolutely not.”

Mrs Badenoch said the defence investment plan should have been funded shortly after Labour came into power in 2024 and criticised the current level of less than 3% of GDP.

She added: “This is not a trivial matter.

“We are talking about the safety of our troops, aren’t we?

“We’re talking about the safety of our country. We need a government that takes these things seriously.

“Defence of the realm is the first duty of government. Keeping our country safe.

“Where is the money coming from?

“It has to come from the welfare bill.

“Welfare should be a safety net for those who are truly vulnerable, not a lifestyle.”

Mrs Badenoch also said dynamic alignment on laws and standards with the European Union “doesn’t make any sense” and is a “red line” as Prime Minister Andy Burnham explores closer co-operation with the block.

She added: “We should be competing with the EU.

“Yes, work closely but look at AI for example. We are doing so much better than them.

“Europe is going backwards, regulating a sector that doesn’t exist, and that is what worries me.

“Labour are living in the past – in the 1970s. They don’t understand the modern workplace.

“They don’t understand tech and what we need.”

The legacy of slavery is set to dominate a meeting of Commonwealth leaders, with Mr Burnham beginning talks over a formal apology and the King set to speak about the issue with “unflinching honesty”.

The Prime Minister has ruled out offering reparations for the harm caused by the transatlantic slave trade, but he will use the summit to set out plans for a “debt reset” aimed at helping poorer Commonwealth countries and allocate £40 million for infrastructure improvements in the Caribbean.

Responding to questions on the issue, Mrs Badenoch said: “If you start teaching history about our country that tells young people that they should be ashamed, that tells young people that actually they don’t belong here for whatever reason – and tells young people that the wealth and prosperity of this country was built on the back of evil things like slavery and colonialism – you are lying to them.

“You have to tell them the truth. The wealth of this country was built on property rights, freedom, free trade, freedom of speech, free markets, enlightened values, old school liberal values.

“If you teach them that it just came from taking elsewhere, we are selling them a lie, and then we start losing the understanding of what it is that make countries wealthy.”

Mrs Badenoch highlighted in her speech that living standards had “stalled” since 2008, a period largely defined by Conservative governments.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Finally a shred of honesty from the Tories about their disastrous time in government.

“Kemi Badenoch’s party smashed family finances and hammered living standards while they were in power.

“They’ve been out of office for over two years now and still haven’t apologised. They should be ashamed.

“Since they were kicked out of office, we’ve seen Kemi Badenoch attempt to plunge our country into war with Iran, which would have caused an even greater economic shock than we’re already experiencing.

“They’re the same old Tories making the same old mistakes. They failed the British people once – given the chance, they’d do the same all over again.”

Mrs Badenoch has insisted she had not called for the UK to join the war on Iran but she did support the actions of the US and Israel.