UK politics: Jenrick’s ideas mostly ‘my thoughts repackaged’, says Badenoch – as it happened

Kemi Badenoch has again ruled out an electoral pact with Reform UK.

In an interview with BBC West, asked if she agreed with the former Tory cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has called for a pact with Reform, Badenoch said she didn’t. She went on:

I have been very clear that people need to know who we are and what we stand for. And if we start talking about pacts and so on, it looks like a stitch up.

I’m the leader of the Conservative party. I was elected to get the Conservatives back on track. I was not elected to make it the Reform party. And I will not be doing that.

I have a lot of time for Jacob Rees-Mogg. He’s a good man, but I disagree with him.

Sarah Atherton, a former Tory MP, has defected to Reform UK.

In an article for the Express, Atherton says she is joining Nigel Farage’s party because she thinks it would offer the most support to the armed forces. She served in the army herself, in the intelligence corps, and was a defence minister for the few weeks Liz Truss was prime minister.

Atherton, who was elected in 2019 as the first ever Tory MP for Wrexham but who lost the seat in 2024, said:

From its inception, Reform has been unashamedly patriotic, built on the core value of Britain first. It is the only party fighting to ensure the people’s voices are heard and the only one serious about restoring our armed forces.

Reform’s defence policy is clear: increase spending to rebuild capability, strengthen borders, back veterans, and protect sovereignty. You may not always agree with every detail but with Reform you know where we stand — unapologetically on the side of Britain, its people, and its armed forces.

I did not enter politics for titles or convenience. I did it to fight for people — and I have the scars to prove it. The Conservatives have broken their bond of covenant. Labour cannot be trusted with our security. Britain deserves better. That is why Reform has my support.

Reform UK is on course to do very well in next year’s Senedd elections, polling suggests, and Atherton has indicated that she would like to be a candidate.

Atherton is the 14th former MP who has defected from the Conservatives to Reform. A 15th Tory who did win a seat at the last election, Danny Kruger, has also recently defected.

Kemi Badenoch has been told that the challenges posed by leaving the European convention on human rights are not “insurmountable”, even though the UK would expend “significant political capital” if it were to pull out.

The advice is set out in a draft of the report from Lord Wolfson, the shadow attorney general, on the case for ECHR withdrawal obtained by the Guido Fawkes website.

In June Badenoch appointed Wolfson to review the impact of the ECHR on UK law, looking at whether the UK would be able to achieve five goals without leaving. At the time Badenoch made it clear that she expected the report to come out in favour of withdrawal.

It is being discussed by the shadow cabinet tomorrow, and in a speech to the Tory conference on Sunday Badenoch is expected to formally commit the party to withdrawal. The Wolfson report is intended to show that withdrawal is not just desirable, but also feasible.

According to the extract leaked to Guido Fawkes, Wolfson says the UK joined the ECHR on only reluctantly in the early 1950s and at the time, because it had a strong tradition of common law rights, officials assumed that the UK would only occasionally be found in breach of the convention. But that has changed because the European court of human rights (ECtHR) has extended its powers beyond what was first agreed, he says.

Wolfson argues that attempts to reform the ECtHR are “unlikely” to succeed within the next few years. And he says the UK does not need to be subject to an international court to offer proper rights protection. He says:

It is worth remembering that countries that inherited the British model of rights protection have continued to improve their approach to rights protection and official accountability, but done so without binding themselves to international courts. As Lord Sumption has observed: “In countries such as the United Kingdom, with independent and apolitical courts of high standing, it is unnecessary to have another tier of judicial supervision at the international level. Other countries with judicial systems similar to Britain’s, such as Canada and New Zealand, have a high reputation for defending human rights without submitting their domestic arrangements to the scrutiny of an international court. If Britain were to withdraw from the convention and re-enact the same provisions as a purely domestic instrument, it would be possible to defend all the same basic rights without submitting to the overbearing regulatory instincts of the Strasbourg court.”

Wolfson argues that leaving the convention is feasible – although he does not pretend it would be easy.

The precise nuances and immediate consequences of denunciation are not without their complexities, and significant political capital will be required to effect a policy to leave the ECHR; however, this advice demonstrates that none of these complexities is insurmountable (notably, the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement is not a barrier). The form of rights protection that might follow leaving the ECHR is an open question, this advice sets out the various options that are available, and their relative merits …

It is also important to avoid conflating the politics of leaving the ECHR with the legality of doing so. Lord Hermer KC, the attorney general for England & Wales, has recently suggested - without, it seems, adducing any actual evidence - that other countries may not be willing to enter into migration or return deals with the UK if it were no longer a member of the ECHR. That is a primarily a political question, not a legal one, and is a matter for each individual country. However, insofar as other countries take the same approach as the UK, that flies in the face of the numerous migration deals that the UK has with other countries regardless of whether they are in the ECHR or not. Such comments are, in my view, designed to direct attention away from the legal difficulties created by the ECHR and the legality of leaving, which has been the focus of this advice.

Wolfson also says that, in all five areas where Badenoch set her tests, the ECHR imposes limits on what the government can do. But it in some of them the constraints posed by the convention are more limited. Border policy is the area where “the most urgent and extensive changes are needed”, Wolfson says.

The Conservative party has been approached for a comment.

Kemi Badenoch is not the only party leader previewing what she is likely to say at her party conference. (See 12.51pm.) The Green party conference starts tomorrow, and Zack Polanski, the new leader, has released an advance extract from his speech calling for a wealth tax.

According to the party, he will argue “the country’s housing crisis, crumbling NHS and rising bills are not accidents, but the result of a political system designed to protect the wealth of the top 1% at the expense of the 99%”.

Polanski will say:

Hairdressers and plumbers say, understandably, I’ve worked hard all my life. Why are you taxing me? Why are you taxing my ambition? We need to make sure that everyone in this country knows there will be people who go to sleep tonight and, without lifting a finger, will wake up richer, much richer.

They will make more money in one night than everyone in this room could make in an entire year. More than Bournemouth could make in an entire year. That’s why it’s difficult sometimes to picture. It’s obscene.

Not a tax on hairdressers. Plumbers. Or ambition. A tax on the assets of the 1% to reduce inequality and make sure that we all have a country everyone can afford to live in. A country with universal free childcare, with funding for SEND education, with rural bus routes and climate investment. It’s time for a party that’s bold enough to say, tax the rich.

At the last election the Greens were proposing a wealth tax levied at 1% annually on assets above £10m, and 2% on assets above £1bn.

Alok Sharma, the former Tory cabinet minister who was president of the Cop26 climate conference, has also criticised Kemi Badenoch’s plan to get rid of the Climate Change Act.

In a statement, he described it as an act of “short-term political expediency” that would put investment and jobs at risk. He said:

Thanks to the strong and consistent commitment of the previous Conservative government to climate action and net zero, the UK attracted many tens of billions of pounds of private sector investment and accompanying jobs.

This is a story of British innovation, economic growth, skilled jobs and global leadership – not just a matter of environmental stewardship.

Turning our back on this progress now risks future investment and jobs into our country, as well as our international standing.

The path to a prosperous, secure and electable future for the Conservative party lies in building on our achievements, not abandoning them.

Voters, especially younger people and those in key marginal seats which we need to retain or win back, expect serious, coherent and forward-looking policies from the Conservative party.

Our legacy is one of global leadership. We should not squander this for the sake of short-term political expediency.

Sharma is now a peer and chair of the Transition Finance Council, a body set up by the government and the City of London to set up to develop means of ensuring capital is available to finance green transition projects.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has ordered an urgent review of vetting procedures for foreign-qualified doctors after 22 medics banned from practising overseas were cleared to treat NHS patients, PA Media reports. PA says:

Streeting said the findings of an investigation by The Times were “horrific” and “a serious failure in our medical regulatory systems that I will not tolerate”.

The Times reported how 22 doctors have been subject to discipline or restrictions overseas but there is no record of that on their General Medical Council (GMC) licences in the UK.

Cases include doctors suspended abroad over their care of patients and one medic who lost his medical licence overseas for having sex with a patient.

Another doctor was found to have sexually harassed colleagues, one was evading stalking charges and another was convicted of assault.

The Times highlighted how some of this information is public record and easily found on the internet.

Using a computer programme, global reporters compared the names and biographies of doctors who had been disciplined abroad with the names of doctors registered with the GMC, and where there was a match verified this was the same person.

Streeting said of the findings: “The public rightly expects that any doctor practising in this country meets the highest standards of professional conduct and these horrific allegations represent a serious failure in our medical regulatory systems that I will not tolerate.

“Patient safety is my priority, which is why I have taken immediate action, requesting urgent clarification from the General Medical Council about their processes for vetting international doctors seeking to work in the UK.

“I have also instructed NHS England to identify the status of these doctors and work with trusts to ensure patients and staff are kept safe as a matter of urgency.

“No doctor with serious misconduct findings should be able to slip through the cracks and practise in our NHS – no exceptions, no matter where they trained.”

Fiona Harvey is the Guardian’s environment editor.

Theresa May, the former prime minister, has said that getting rid of the Climate Change Act would be a “catastrophic mistake”.

Referring to the policy announced by Kemi Badenoch today (see 10.23am), which rips up legislation passed by May (see 10.53am), May said in a statement:

I am deeply disappointed by this retrograde step which upends 17 years of consensus between our main political parties and the scientific community. For nearly two decades, the United Kingdom has led the way in tackling climate change, initially with the Climate Change Act in 2008 and again in 2019 when we became the first G7 country to legislate to get to Net Zero by 2050.

To row back now would be a catastrophic mistake for while that consensus is being tested, the science remains the same. The harms are undeniable. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to ensure we protect the planet for their futures and that means giving business the reassurance it needs to find the solutions for the very grave challenges we face.

Ultimately, it is innovation and investment that will take us forward but that can only be achieved by providing consistency and showing a clear determination to stick to the long-term path of reducing emissions, achieving net zero and protecting our planet for future generations.

May, who left Downing Street in 2019 and who is now in the House of Lords, has mostly avoided criticising her successors, and this may be the most damning thing she has said about an official Conservative policy for many years. She feels particularly strongly about the Climate Change Act because legislating for net zero by 2050 was one of the few legislative landmarks she left during a premiership dominated by her failure to pass Brexit legislation.

Kemi Badenoch has given a punchy interview to Tim Shipman from the Spectator ahead of the Tory conference. Here are the main lines.

• Badenoch claimed the Conservative party was close to going bust when she took over as leader last year. She said:

I basically inherited a distressed asset and my first job was to just make sure we didn’t go bust. Most of my first three to six months were spent on that. I just couldn’t get out there much. The opportunity cost was perhaps not doing much media.

When it was put to her that she should have spent more time over the past year talking about policy, she said she would “rather be out raising every single penny”, not doing ‘some nice media interviews’. Asked why she couldn’t do both, she replied:

I don’t think people realise just how perilous the situation was.

• She said that she will give two speeches at Tory conference – a speech on Sunday setting out the party’s plans to leave the European convention on human rights, as well as the traditional end-of-conference speech on Wednesday. That is similar to what Theresa May did in 2016, when she give a speech on the Sunday about her Brexit policy. (That was the speech where she in effect committed the UK to leaving the single market and the customs unions – despite the fact she had not cleared that with cabinet.) Badenoch is going to present the ECHR plans to her shadow cabinet tomorrow.

• She claimed that most of Robert Jenrick’s ideas were hers. Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, was Badenoch’s main rival in the leadership contest last year. It is widely assumed that he is preparing to stand in another contest before the election, and he has a very active social media comment, where he is happy to comment on topics outside his brief. Asked if she was happy about Jenrick offering his views so readily, Badenoch said: ‘Yes. But most of them are my thoughts repackaged.” She also said:

I don’t mind that he says what he thinks. The advantage of having a leadership contest is that you’ve kind of already said what you think. Repeating it, which is what Rob tends to do, is not new information.

Badenoch is not being fair to her rival. In last year’s contest the most significant policy difference between Badenoch and Jenrick was Jenrick giving a firm commitment to withdraw from the ECHR, while Badenoch would not make that commitment. She did not rule out withdrawal, but said it was not a “silver bullet”. In Manchester next week at their conference the Tories will be adopting the Jenrick policy.

• Badenoch said she wanted her shadow ministers to speak out at conference, even if that meant going beyond the official party line. She said:

I think people should just speak freely, no matter what the consequences are. I don’t mind people straying a little bit off piste.

• She said, when she spoke to Donald Trump at the state banquet, he told her: “I hear me and you agree on so many things.” In particular, he referred to her call from more oil and gas extraction from the North Sea.

The International Rescue Committee, a global refugee charity, has criticised Keir Starmer for suggesting that being granted asylum in the UK under the current rules amounts to a “golden ticket”.

Referring to the government’s plan to limit some of the benefits that come with being granted asylum, including automatic settlement and family reunion rights, Flora Alexander, executive director of the International Rescue Committee UK, said:

The government’s decision to strip refugees of resettlement and family reunion rights is a devastating blow to those families seeking safety from conflict, crisis, and persecution.

Family reunion is not a ‘golden ticket’ - it’s a lifeline. It enables protection, supports integration, and reduces the desperation that fuels irregular crossings. Removing this route doesn’t fix the system, it fractures families and pushes more people into the hands of smugglers.

For many, particularly women and children, family reunion has been the only way to reach safety without resorting to dangerous journeys across the Channel. With global resettlement quotas collapsing and no viable alternatives in place, removing this route leaves families stranded and vulnerable.

We urge the government to reconsider these changes and ensure that those seeking safety are met with practical, humane solutions that reflect the UK’s proud tradition of refugee protection.

The IRC UK is the British arm for the IRC, the US-based charity run by David Miliband, a former Labour foreign secretary and brother of the energy secretary, Ed Miliband.

Voters trust the Green party most … on green issues, is the rather unsurprising finding of a poll by YouGov looking at how voters view the party, which starts its autumn conference tomorrow. The Greens are least trusted on the economy and on defence.

But there is something remarkable about this. In his write-up for YouGov, Dylan Difford says:

Unsurprisingly, Britons have a particular degree of confidence in the Greens when it comes to the environment. What’s notable, though, is that a majority of Britons (54%) say they have at least a fair amount of trust in the party on the issue. Out of the 18 areas polled, which have been asked about all five major parties, this is the only issue for any of the parties for where most people express confidence in a given party.

Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens have all (like Gavin Barwell – see 10.53am) condemned the Tory plan to get rid of the Climate Change Act.

Labour issued this response from Ed Miliband, the energy secretary.

This desperate policy from Kemi Badenoch if ever implemented would be an economic disaster and a total betrayal of future generations.

The Conservatives would now scrap a framework that businesses campaigned for in the first place and has ensured tens of billions of pounds of investment in homegrown British energy since it was passed by a Labour government with Conservative support 17 years ago.

This is from the Lib Dem energy spokesperson Pippa Heylings.

Investing in renewables is the greatest economic growth opportunity in this century and will protect the planet for future generations. The Conservatives’ refusal to acknowledge this, and their failures, shows that they are only interested in following Farage, not leading Britain.

And this is from the Green MP Carla Denyer.

Kemi Badenoch is taking the Conservatives even further down the path to irrelevance with this through-the-looking-glass idea.

The vast majority of the British public want to see action to secure a safe climate for our children and grandchildren, and Britain’s green economy is booming.

It’s embarrassing that Badenoch is ready to trash the progress this country has made towards a safe and healthy future, even under Conservative governments, just to satisfy the demands of her party’s donors in the fossil fuel industry.

The Conservative party’s news release about getting rid of the Climate Change Act (see 10.23am) describes it as legislation passed by Ed Miliband (energy secretary in 2008, as he is now). It does not mention the fact that the change to the act setting 2050 as the target date for achieving net zero – the aspect of the legislation that Kemi Badenoch finds particularly objectionable – was passed when Theresa May was PM.

But Gavin Barwell, who was May’s chief of staff at the time and who is now a Conservative peer, does remember. He has told HuffPost UK that the policy announced by Kemi Badenoch today is a mistake. He said:

This is both bad policy and bad politics. If you look at the US, where policies like these are being enacted, electricity prices are going up, not down. And polling shows Conservative voters support the net zero target.

There is no future for the Conservative party in being a Reform tribute act.

This is what the Conservative party says in its news release about why it wants to get rid of the Climate Change Act 2008. Interestingly, the party is talking about “replacing” the act, not just repealing it, but the Tories have not said what they would replace it with.

The party says:

The 2008 legislation has forced successive governments to introduce punitive measures that have hit family finances – including the Boiler Tax which will push up the price of gas boilers to force people to adopt heat pumps just for the purpose of meeting a self-imposed target.

The act ignores the fact that climate change is a global problem. If the British chemicals, cement, or metals industry shuts down and moves abroad to countries with cheaper but dirtier energy, then Britain won’t need any less chemicals, cement, or metals – we will just import more from abroad instead, and lose out on all the jobs, tax revenue, and economic growth. Britain will be poorer and global emissions will increase.

The CCA has also forced ministers to support Drax, where trees are cut down in North America, shipped across the Atlantic in diesel-chugging ships, and burnt in a power station in Yorkshire, at great cost to billpayers and our environment, because it is labelled ‘clean’ for the purposes of our climate targets.

The UK has already halved its emissions since 1990, reducing emissions by more than any other major economy. But global emissions are rising and countries like China are not following our lead. Continuing down this path of unilateral economic disarmament will make us a warning, not an example, to the rest of the world.

The Conservatives support action on climate change – and believe in safeguarding our environment for future generations – but this has to happen when it makes people’s lives better. People should be able to adopt electric vehicles and electric heating when they want to and when it will save them money, not when they are forced to by a government mandate.

The Conservatives used to be seen as the party of business. But that relationship was ruptured by Brexit, when the Tories backed a policy seen as highly damaging by mainstream business opinion, and it has not really recovered. There is fresh evidence today because the CBI, a leading business organistion, has said that scrapping the Climate Change Act would be a “backwards step” that would “damage our economy”.

In a statement, Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI director general, said:

The scientific reality of climate change makes action from both government and business imperative. Scrapping the Climate Change Act would be a backwards step in achieving our shared objectives of reaching economic growth, boosting energy security, protecting our environment and making life healthier for future generations.

The Climate Act has been the bedrock for investment flowing into the UK and shows that decarbonisation and economic growth are not a zero-sum game. Businesses delivering the energy transition added £83bn to the economy last year alone, providing high-paying jobs to almost a million people across the UK. The UK’s climate governance and the cross-party consensus that has underpinned it has shaped long-term contracts to deliver renewable energy, investment in green technologies and our international leadership in decarbonisation.

We can debate the pace of transition and how it’s achieved to ensure that decarbonisation does not come at the expense of critical industries. But fundamentally ripping up the framework that’s given investors confidence that the UK is serious about sustainable growth through a low-carbon future would damage our economy.

Dozens of US flags used for Donald Trump’s unprecedented second state visit to the UK last month had to be replaced because the stripes were the wrong shade of red, a government supplier has claimed, Matthew Weaver reports.

Related: Stars and stripes flags for Trump UK visit had to be changed for brighter red

Good morning. The Labour conference is over, the Conservative one starts on Sunday, but both parties have got significant policy announcements out today.

• For Labour, Keir Starmer is announcing government plans to tighten the conditions that apply to asylum seekers given the right to stay in the UK. Provocatively, he says: “There will be no golden ticket to settling in the UK, people will have to earn it.” Rajeev Syal has the story.

Related: Starmer to end asylum ‘golden ticket’ of resettlement and family reunion rights

• For the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch has said the Conservatives will repeal the Climate Change Act if they win the next election. Here is our story, by Fiona Harvey and Helena Horton.

Related: Kemi Badenoch vows to repeal Climate Change Act

I will post more on these stories as the day goes on.

There is a clear link between the stories: both of them are Reform UK-flavoured, very strongly so in the Tory case (because Nigel Farage would also get rid of the Climate Change Act), but less so in the Labour case (because Farage does not want to tighten conditions for asylum seekers – he basically does not want any of them here at all.) But the Starmer announcement shows that, while the message from Labour conference was that Starmer is now willing to vigorously contest some aspects of Faragism, he is not rejecting it wholesale. He has set out a dividing line – but it is beyond the edge of the territory where migration liberals feel comfortable.

One consequence of the Labour conference is that ministers now feel a lot more confident about clobbering Farage’s party and this morning we saw that from Mike Tapp, the migration minister.

Yesterday Zia Yusuf, Reform’s head of policy, gave interviews arguing Starmer’s attack on Farage in his conference Tuesday put the Reform leader at risk. This was an odd claim from a party that invited the woman jailed for urging people to set fire to asylum hotels to address its party conference as a free speech martyr. Yusuf went even further, though. He implied that Starmer was deliberately trying to get Farage killed. This was an allegation so unhinged that the Guardian ended up covering it in John Crace’s sketch. This is what John wrote about Yusuf’s interview with Wilfred Frost on Sky News.

Yusuf was appalled by Starmer’s speech. It had been vicious, vindictive and inflammatory. An attempt to demonise Nige. As such it had been an incitement to violence. Here was the crux of it. Starmer knew that he couldn’t beat Farage at the ballot box so he was trying to have him assassinated.

“There’s a term known as ‘stochastic terrorism’,” Zia went on. It meant to whip up so much hatred that one supporter takes it on themselves to kill the target. And that was what Starmer had been doing. It was almost certainly the first time the prime minister has been called a terrorist on live news. Time and again, Frost invited Yusuf to back down. To qualify his language. But Zia wasn’t having any of it. Starmer was a terrorist. The one aim of his speech had been to incite someone to kill Farage. Everything else was a smokescreen. Yusuf alone knew the truth. You wonder what he makes of Nige’s speeches.

In an interview with Times Radio, Tapp was asked to respond. He said the claim that Starmer wanted to incite violence against Farage was “utter nonsense”. He went on:

Of course, we want all members of parliament to be safe, and that’s absolutely important, and no-one wants any harm to come to Nigel Farage.

But, look, if we want to say what we want to say, then we’re in our rights to do that, as are they. That’s freedom of speech.

This is utter snowflakery from Zia Yusuf, who claims that we’re diminishing freedom of speech whilst at the same time being allowed to say what he wants.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer is at the European Political Community summit in Copenhagen. Jakub Krupa is covering this on his Europe live blog.

Related: European leaders meet at Denmark summit to discuss security, defence and migration – Europe live

5pm: Kemi Badenoch is doing a round of regional radio and TV interviews, ahead of her conference. Most will be embargoed until 5pm.

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