UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch hits back hard at Reform: Angus Taylor take note

October 11, 2026 — 1:30pm

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As the Coalition continues to argue with itself about how to deal with One Nation, Angus Taylor and his colleagues would do well to watch an electrifying speech by Britain’s Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, at her party’s conference in Birmingham last week. With the Conservatives ever so slowly inching up in opinion polls (from a very low base), and the insurgent populist party Reform UK beginning to slide as its leader Nigel Farage is almost daily tainted by new embarrassments and scandals, Badenoch left nobody wondering about how she plans to take the fight to Britain’s equivalent of Pauline Hanson.

Like Labour’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Badenoch has emerged as a galvanising new leader. Just as Burnham has given Labour new hope, Badenoch has re-energised the Tories. Both of the traditional parties of government are in a stronger position than they have been anytime in the past year.

Badenoch is a remarkable figure – charismatic, articulate and fearless. She was born in London in 1980 to Nigerian parents. (“Kemi” is a diminutive: she was christened Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke.) An engineer by training, she became an MP in 2017 and was soon promoted to cabinet. Emerging as the unexpected choice for leader after the Tory trainwreck at the 2024 election, she has already claimed the biggest political scalp any opposition........

© The Sydney Morning Herald