Kemi 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.

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.

“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.