“We’re Still Shuffling Migrants Between France and the UK”: Badenoch on the Small Boats Crisis

In an interview with GB News, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has said the small boats crisis is far from resolved, despite a recent fall in Channel crossings and the deployment of 45 new French police officers, arguing that the Government’s approach still leaves people arriving in the UK.

Asked whether she welcomed the news that Labour appeared to be getting a grip on the Channel crisis without reviving the Rwanda plan, Mrs Badenoch was sceptical. “Well, there’s still a small boat crisis,” she said in an interview with Chris Hope, GB News’ Political Editor.

“What’s happening is we’re shuffling between France and the UK, and we’re paying France hundreds of millions, if not billions, to help stop this, and they’re still coming. So I’m glad to see numbers coming down, but I’m not necessarily sure it’s anything to do with what Labour have been doing.”
She argued that a genuine deterrent was still needed, pointing to the scale of migration pressure building elsewhere in Europe. “We still need a deterrent. We see people making these journeys, just last month, what did we see? Sixty to seventy thousand people on that island of Lampedusa, all wanting to come to Europe, many of them wanting to end up here,” she said.

Mrs Badenoch repeated her party’s commitment to leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, framing it as a policy about removals as much as arrivals. “So we have a policy, we’re going to leave the ECHR, because it isn’t just about the boats, it’s also about deporting the people who’ve already got here, who are staying in HMOs and army bases,” she said. “We’re paying a lot of money to house and feed them, and they need to go back soon, elsewhere.”

Mrs Badenoch also weighed in on the upcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election, after confirmation that Green Party leader Zack Polanski would be standing. Asked about the contest, she drew a sharp contrast between the parties on offer. “If people want someone who will vote to bankrupt the country, then they’ll go for the Labour candidate,” she said. “But if they want sound money, increased growth and opportunity, aspiration, more jobs and a better economy, they should vote for the Conservative candidate.”

She was more pointed to the Green leader. “If people want an MP who is going to hypnotise them, they should vote for Zack Polanski,” she said, a reference to Mr Polanski’s past work as a hypnotherapist.

The Conservative leader was also pressed by GB News’ Christopher Hope on her past praise for Prime Minister Andy Burnham, after previous comments about his “stamina” at PMQs prompted suggestions she was “flirting” with him. “Absolutely not, that’s ridiculous,” Mrs Badenoch said. “I’m holding him to account, which is my job as Leader of the Opposition.”

She said her assessment of Mr Burnham’s character had not changed, but argued it was irrelevant to how he should be judged as Prime Minister. “Look, I think he’s a nice guy, I said before, when he was Mayor of Manchester, he’s quite easy-going,” she said. “But being Prime Minister of our country is not about being a people-pleaser. It’s actually about taking tough decisions, and you’ll get a lot of stick for doing the right thing, even when it’s a tough thing, but you’ve got to do it.”

She argued that his handling of demands in office so far showed the risk of prioritising popularity over difficult choices. “If you just say yes to everybody, which is what he did in his first outing, people had so many spending requests, and he can’t say no to anybody, that concerns me,” she said. “When someone wants to be a nice guy rather than actually being the leader of our country, his job is to look after the country, not just be popular.”