Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch sought to compare her party to Donald Trump’s Maga movement on Monday, arguing that a second stint in government was required to “really know how to fix” a nation’s problems.
In a keynote speech opening the right-leaning Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) conference on Monday, she said that both western civilisation and the UK Conservatives are in “crisis”.
The Arc event for 4,000 delegates at the Excel Centre in east London aims to examine how to restore and renew western societies, and to shake up what the organisers see as a “stagnant” realm of ideas in the Anglosphere.
Badenoch told the event that people ask her what difference new leadership — under her auspices — will make to the Tories, who suffered their worst-ever defeat at a general election last year.
“Well, take a look at President Trump. He’s shown that sometimes you need that first stint in government to spot the problems, but it’s the second time around when you really know how to fix them. And it starts by telling the truth,” she said.
Badenoch was referring to the Conservative party’s 14-year period in power that ended last summer. Her analogy may raise eyebrows, however, given the Tories have been in office many times before, unlike Trump who has occupied the Oval Office only once previously.
She suggested that the UK’s parliament was “obsessed with trivia” and presided over “stagnation despite making more and more laws”. This is contributing to young people’s disaffection towards democracy, she added.
The Tory leader said she was embarking on her party’s “largest renewal of policy and ideas in a generation”, warning that a failure to renew would mean “our country and all of western civilisation will be lost”.
The Arc conference is “part of finding those answers”, she said, adding it filled her with “hope”.
Delegates responded positively to Badenoch’s speech. Molly Banerjei, a Toronto realtor who leads a campaign for December to be declared Christian heritage month in Canada, said it was the first time she had heard the “very refreshing and thoughtful” Tory leader.
“It’s good to see someone who may have been born here, but grew up in another country, who shares the conservative values, who has a vision to see that implemented here in this country,” Banerjei said.
However, Badenoch’s intervention met a vexed response from other opposition politicians. Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper accused Badenoch of “competing with [Reform UK leader] Nigel Farage to fawn over Donald Trump” and parroting the US president’s “dangerous rhetoric” rather than “standing up for Ukraine and Europe’s security”.
Framing herself as a champion of “classic liberal values”, Badenoch hit out at left-wing ideology for promoting “embarrassment” about the west’s legacy and “in extremis, a hatred of western history and even its culture”, as she pinpointed universities as a crucible for “poisoning minds” with such views.
“A country cannot be successful if its people and intellectual elite don’t believe in it. This means dealing with the poisoning of minds through higher education,” she said.
She said the left’s focus on pronouns, climate activism, and diversity, equity and inclusion were being used as devices to “control” populations, as she lambasted the “poison of left-wing progressivism”.
Appearing to defend populism, the Tory leader said: “Don’t listen to the media class complain about populism. The very essence of democracy is acknowledging the will of everyday people — and then actually making it happen.”
Badenoch argued that “some cultures are better than others”, adding that it was “only contentious to say this because honesty has become impossible”, but declined to name the cultures to which she was referring.
It marked the reprisal of a theme with which she has stoked controversy previously. Last autumn she raised eyebrows by claiming that not all cultures are “equally valid” and criticising “recent immigrants who hate Israel”, adding: “I don’t think those who bring foreign conflicts here should be welcome.”
Badenoch also praised high-profile British headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh for successfully facing down attempts by some religious pupils to encourage the wearing of headscarves and practise of prayer rituals in her secular school.
The first morning of the three-day conference heavily featured explicitly Christian themes, as well as music from a Christian band.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson spoke about the biblical teachings that underpinned the foundation of the United States and the inherent value of each human which is “give to us by God”.
Controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, an Arc co-founder, addressed the crowd about the “Christian drama” and the “sacrifice most pleasing to God”.
Evangelical hedge fund boss Sir Paul Marshall, one of the founders of Arc, last week told the FT that “there should be no mix of faith and politics — it’s a dangerous combination”, but insisted the conference is about ideas, which are “upstream” of politics — despite the event featuring a raft of senior British and American politicians.
Farage, Peter Thiel and American entrepreneur-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy are among other right-leaning figures due to address the event.
The third annual Arc conference, it has more than doubled its in-person audience since its inception. More than 1,000 delegates have travelled from the US, and more than 300 from Australia and New Zealand, to attend the event this week.
Debates about the economic cost of net zero, the value of the family, declining birth rates, free trade and the disruption caused by technology are among the core themes this year.
