Britain’s Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, says President Trump deserved his party’s heavy losses in Tuesday’s US midterms, according to an interview with The Independent reported Saturday.
Who is Badenoch?
Badenoch leads the Conservative Party, often called the Tories. It is Britain’s main opposition party, so she is also Leader of the Opposition. That means she heads the largest party outside the government.
What she said
Badenoch spoke to The Independent’s editor-in-chief, Geordie Greig, on The Talk Show, an interview program Greig hosts. LBC reported the remarks at 3:38 a.m. ET Saturday.
Asked if Trump deserved to be “thrashed,” she answered, “Well, yeah,” according to LBC. She said he has not acted the way she would “consider conservative.” She called the defeat “entirely self-inflicted” and added, “Voters want results.”
Key points from the interview, as reported by The Independent, LBC and the Manchester Evening News:
- Trade: She said tariffs hurt the cost of living and asked where the push for free markets had gone.
- Iran: The Independent says she backed Trump’s first decision to go to war with Iran. But she asked, “where’s the plan?”
- Allies: She faulted his talk about Canada and Greenland and what she called “squabbling with allies.”
- Style: She said Trump is “very charming in person” but faulted how he speaks about journalists and people. She criticized him for “always wanting to get dirty in terms of insults.”
- Personal remarks: She said she “didn’t like” it when Trump was rude about Keir Starmer, Britain’s former prime minister. She called the White House meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “awful.”
- Harris vs. Trump: Asked whom she preferred, she said: “I like them both equally. Make of that what you will.”
The ‘special relationship’
The “special relationship” is a common name for the close political and military ties between Britain and the United States. Badenoch said those ties are with the country, not one leader. “We need to separate President Trump from the United States,” she said, according to LBC.
The election backdrop
Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate on Nov. 3. They will hold at least 54 Senate seats in January, CBS News estimates.
Badenoch hinted at her view earlier this week. In a Nov. 5 post on X, she said there were lessons to learn from the US, “especially how NOT to govern.” She also wrote, “Voters want results.”
Any response?
As of Saturday morning, there was no public response from Trump, the White House or close Trump allies. Hisarak checked their X accounts and free news reports.
Sources: The Independent · LBC · Manchester Evening News · CBS News · @KemiBadenoch on X
