Kemi Badenoch is to reverse large parts of Labour's “tax grab” on London as she seeks to put more blue water between the Conservatives and Andy Burnham's government. In her keynote speech to the Tory annual conference in Birmingham, Mrs Badenoch was due to say that her party will fight a “battle for the soul of the nation” at the next election centred on tax-cutting promises.
Tax and benefits pledges
Key to her reforms are Conservative plans to axe tens of billions of pounds off the benefits bill, a move which Mr Burnham has so far shied away from pledging to do. Instead, Chancellor John Healey has not ruled out more tax rises in the Budget at the end of this month.
Ahead of Mrs Badenoch's speech, her deputy Alex Burghart told Times Radio: “There's a view on the Left, which is basically that everything you've got is up for grabs by the taxman, and we're just arguing about what they're going to take next.” But with the tax burden at a historic high, Mrs Badenoch was set to warn that “something is going to break” without better economic growth in Britain.
Contrasting policies
She accused Mr Burnham's Government of wanting to “wind back the clock to failed ideas of the past” after he unveiled plans to put water companies into public ownership and for landlords to face having their homes seized if they rent them out in dismal condition. Laying out very contrasting policies, Mrs Badenoch's Tories have proposed halving employer national insurance for workers aged between 21 to 24. They have also vowed to scrap the so-called “mansion tax” on properties in England worth £2 million or more, a levy which would hit London particularly hard.
In her speech on Wednesday, Mrs Badenoch was also due to announce a cut to the 40% rate of inheritance tax which applies to an estate's value worth more than £325,000, according to the Times. She was set to tell the Tory faithful at the annual rally: “Conference, there is a fight coming in British politics. A fight that we have not seen in this country for more than half a century. It will be a battle for the soul of this nation.”
Vision and reaction
Mrs Badenoch will pitch the Tories, who are behind Labour and narrowly trailing Reform UK in opinion polls, as the party “fighting again for the belief that what people earn belongs to them, not Government”. Echoing former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, she was due to say the Tories offer “the right way” and argue “no on else is going to deliver a stronger economy and a stronger country”.
Mrs Badenoch has sought to distil her key guiding principles in a booklet published on Sunday, arguing that Government should be strong only in areas in which “the state is required” such as “defence, borders, public order, the rule of law and essential infrastructure”. Titled The Right Way and inspired by a similar document setting out the tenets of Thatcherism in the 1970s called The Right Approach, it says wealth must be “created before it can be distributed” and governments “restrained where people are better placed to decide for themselves”.
Commenting ahead of Mrs Badenoch's speech, Labour chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said the Conservatives have not “learned a single lesson” since their election defeat in 2024.
