Badenoch says Tories are 'up for the fight'

THE Conservatives are “up for the fight”, Kemi Badenoch said yesterday as she launched the party’s annual conference in Manchester.

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Breaking with tradition and delivering a welcome speech at the start of the conference on a Sunday, Mrs Badenoch acknowledged the Conservatives had “a mountain to climb” as it languished third in the polls behind Reform UK and Labour.

Setting out her party’s plan to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and deport 150,000 people a year, she insisted her party could win the next general election by “combining secure borders with a shared culture”.

The Tories’ leader said: “Nations cannot survive on diversity alone. We need a strong common culture rooted in our history, our language, our institutions and our belief in liberty under the law.