Kemi Badenoch dismisses claims she is mirroring Nigel Farage as she unveils a welfare crackdown, sparking political debate over Britain’s social system.
To ensure that voters "hear her message," the Tory leader told Political Correspondent Olivia Utley in an interview with GB News that she is instead "taking a leaf out of the Conservative book."
Mrs. Badenoch promised to "get Britain working again" with a comprehensive strategy to restructure the welfare state during a press conference today.
She said:
"Every person who gets off benefits and into work is a double-whammy for growth. We stop paying them to sit at home and they start paying into the system.
This is how we reduce the tax burden, especially on businesses who are then able to go out, create more opportunity and more jobs.
This is the opposite of Labour's current doom loop where they raise taxes and kill jobs so they then need to raise more taxes - that is not going to fix anything."
Olivia questioned the Tory leader about whether she was
"taking a leaf out of his book" after pointing out that her ideas were "straight from the Nigel Farage playbook".
Mrs Badenoch responded:
"Well, I'm taking a leaf out of the Conservative book, which is to make sure we talk about what we believe in and why.
And I think for too long, actually, we didn't do that. We were so busy being in Government, we forgot to make the argument."
She stated:
"I want us to start making arguments again, remind people not just what we're doing, but why we're doing it, why certain things didn't work.
People said they weren't seeing enough of me, so I'm coming out as much as possible to make sure that they hear the Conservative message."
When asked once more if her welfare ideas were "similar to the beliefs" of the Reform UK leader, Mrs. Badenoch disagreed, saying,
"Reform doesn't actually believe what we believe on welfare.
They wanted to lift the two child benefit cap, paying families £3,500 pounds for every child that they have. This is on top of child benefit, which is not capped for a number of children. We're the only party who voted against that.
We're the only party who stood up for all those hard working people out there, and I want them to know that there's only one party that's standing up for the working man and woman, for all those people who are struggling and feel that no one is speaking up for them. That's the Conservative Party."
The Tory leader was asked whether she thought Britons were "deliberately gaming the system to get more money out of the state" when she was questioned further about her plans to change the welfare policy.
Mrs Badenoch told GB News:
"There are definitely people gaming the system, we have seen evidence of it. You look on social media, you have these 'sickfluencers' who actually talk about how to call up the benefits office and say, you have anxiety, you can't turn up. We've just got to scrap that stuff.
We need to be firm and fair, not just trying to be fair and accommodate everyone's wish. We also need to stop paying benefits to people who are not from this country.
We've got reciprocal deals with the EU so that British citizens can get things in the EU, but with other countries we don't need to be paying benefits and giving everyone, you know, social housing and so on in the way that we are doing.
We want people who come to our country to be able to contribute to our country, not just come here because it's an easy life and take us for a ride."
Noting that there needs to be a "creation of jobs" for young Britons, Mrs Badenoch concluded:
"I think that it is a complex problem. It's not just laziness or entitlement, many of them don't have jobs to go to. Many employers are saying that they can't afford to employ young people, it’s too expensive, because they need a lot of training.
We need to make sure we create the jobs and also have that pushed so that they understand that they've got to get to work. The welfare state doesn't exist for people who just don't feel like working."
In addition to altering Universal Credit (UC) to promote work, lessen "sickness culture," and cap benefits, the UK's welfare strategy focuses on large cuts, specifically targeting disability benefits like PIP by eliminating payments for anxiety, with the goal of saving billions.
What criteria will the review use to redefine disability for benefits?
Kemi Badenoch's proposed review of disability benefits would review eligibility by prioritizing severe, empirical physical and internal impairments that demonstrably help work, banning" mild" or private conditions like anxiety, ADHD, or back pain without objective medical substantiation.
The review draws on medical substantiation similar as individual reviews, specialist reports, and functional capacity tests to estimate impairment inflexibility, shifting from tone- reported judgments to evidence of incapability to perform" any job" suited to chops, education, and experience mirroring long- term disability insurance shifts after 24 months.
Claims grounded solely on life factors or common affections yielding high payouts (e.g., £20,000 annually) would face stricter scrutiny via independent assessors, not family doctors, aiming to cut reliance while turning savings to duty relief.