Kemi Badenoch faced a backlash today after the new Conservatives leader claimed the Partygate row that toppled Boris Johnson was “overblown”.
The right-wing Tory MP was named as successor to Rishi Sunak yesterday following a vote among the party’s shrinking membership.
Badenoch was among dozens of Tory MPs who resigned from their government positions in 2022 in protest at Johnson’s calamitous spell as prime minister.
The former leader resigned in disgrace that year after he and several members of his team were found to have repeatedly flouted strict lockdown rules during the coronavirus pandemic.
But in her first major interview as Conservatives leader, Badenoch said: “I thought he was a great Prime Minister.
“But there were some serious issues which were not being resolved and I think that during that tenure the public thought that we were not speaking for them or looking out for them, we were in it for ourselves.”
She went on: “Some of those things I think were perception issues, a lot of the stuff that happened around Partygate was not why I resigned. I thought that it was overblown. We should not have created fixed penalty notices, for example. That was us not going with our principles.”
She added that the public was “not wrong to be upset about Partygate”, but said : “The problem was that we should not have criminalised everyday activities the way that we did.
“People going out for walks, all of them having fixed penalty notices, that was what ended up creating a trap for Boris Johnson.” T
Labour MP Paul Waugh responded on X: “The Tories really haven’t learned anything have they?”
But Badenoch insisted she wanted to “draw a line” under the Tories’ problems. She said: “We’ve lost an election – an historic defeat. Simply churning over every single incident is not going to be helpful with where we are today.”
Ellie Reeves, Labour party chair, said: “Listening to KemiBadenoch dismiss Partygate as ‘overblown’ will add insult to injury for families across Britain who followed the rules, missing loved one’s deaths and family funerals, whilst her colleagues partied in Downing Street.
“Kemi Badenoch must explain where the cuts to state schools will bite after promising unfunded tax breaks for private schools – no wonder she refused to condemn Liz Truss whose Mini Budget crashed the economy.
“The leader may have changed but on her first day in the job Kemi Badenoch has proved three times that the Tories haven’t listened and they haven’t learnt.”
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