Kemi Badenoch: Partygate was 'overblown' and government should not have issued lockdown breach fines

Kemi Badenoch says partygate was “overblown” and the government should not have fined people for breaking lockdown rules.

The new UK Conservative leader also said Rachel Reeves becoming the first female chancellor in 800 years is “not nearly as significant” as what other women in the UK have achieved.

Ms Badenoch made the comments while appearing on BBC Sundays with Laura Kuenssberg, where she praised Boris Johnston as a “great” Prime Minister and said the tax burden was “too high” under the previous Conservative government.

Kemi Badenoch during her appearance on BBC Sundays with Laura Kuenssberg | Jeff Overs/BBC

In her interview, she said: “I thought [Boris Johnson] was a great Prime Minister, but there were some serious issues that 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.

“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 it was overblown.

“We should not have created fixed penalty notices, for example - that was us not going with our principles.”

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She added: “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.”

A photograph from the Boris Johnson partygate scandal.

Mr Johnson, his wife Carrie Johnson and former prime minister Rishi Sunak all received fixed penalty notices for breaking their own lockdown restrictions in Downing Street. 

Ms Badenoch was a junior minister when the partygate scandal came to light.

At the time she remained in his government, but then resigned over the Chris Pincher scandal which ultimately brought down Mr Johnson’s premiership.

Ms Badenoch’s election victory on Saturday, where she beat rival Robert Jenrick MP by 12,418 votes, makes her the first black female leader of a major UK political party.

Kemi Badenoch, pictured shortly after winning the UK Conservative leadership election, with her husband Hamish. | Stefan Rousseau/Press Association

Some of her North West Essex constituents hailed her for breaking the glass ceiling with her victory - but in her interview with Laura Kuenssberg she dismissed Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s achievements at becoming the first female chancellor of the exchequer.

She said: “We’ve got to a point where the colour of your skin is no more remarkable than the colour of your eyes or the colour of your hair.

“We live in a multicultural society which is great, but we need to work hard to make sure it doesn’t become something divisive,

“People see themselves as being part of groups rather than being British.

“So I hear people saying it is remarkable and I am glad it shows the country and the party are places where it doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, it is about what you have to offer.

“But I find it astonishing that Rachel Reeves is talking about being the first female chancellor.

“That was a very low glass ceiling and not nearly as significant as what other women in this country have achieved.”

Rachel Reeves is the first female chancellor of the exchequer. | Jordan Pettitt/Press Association

During her interview she also vowed to tell the “hard truths” on the economy to her party and the whole country.

She said: “As a country we are getting poorer, we are getting older, we are being out-competed by many other competitor countries, and we need to look at how we can reorganise our economy to be fit for the future, not just doing what we always used to, and I think that there is an exciting challenge there.

“I’m very optimistic about what we can do, but simply just saying things and making promises to the whole country without knowing how you’re going to deliver them, as we did on Brexit, as we did on net zero, I don’t think is building trust.”

Ms Badenoch also accused the previous Conservative government she was a part of of borrowing too much and raising taxes too high.

She claims reducing taxes does not have to mean cutting public services.

Ms Badenoch said: “If we start from the assumption that we can just tax and borrow our way through, we will keep getting poorer, and that is what has been happening, and we were a part of that.

“So when you ask what we did wrong, these were some of the things that I think that we got wrong.

“I think the tax burden was too high under the Conservatives.

“That doesn’t mean that we have to cut public services, it means that we have to look at how we are delivering public services, and a lot of what government does is not even public services.”

She also vowed to reverse Labour’s decision to impose VAT on private school fees, calling it a “tax on aspiration” that will not raise any money.

Ms Badenoch said: “Taxing education is wrong, it is against our principles, so yes that is the sort of thing that I can very easily say we would not do.”

She also said her shadow cabinet will be “meritocratic” and will showcase a range of diversities, geography and professional experience.

Her comments during her interview with the BBC have since been criticised by Ellie Reeves, chairwoman of the Labour Party.

She said: “Listening to Kemi Badenoch dismiss partygate as ‘overblown’ will add insult to injury for families across Britain who followed the rules, missing loved ones’ 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 learned.”