KEMI Badenoch has claimed that “all of Western civilisation” may be lost if the Conservative Party is not revived – as the blundering Tory leader faces the threat of a leadership challenge within months.
Badenoch said Britain stood at the “dawn of the new Conservative century” as she warned that the West was “in crisis”.
The Conservative leader hit out at legal “loopholes” which had been “hacked” in recent decades, including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Speaking at a centre-right political conference, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) in London, the Tory leader said: “For those of us who seek leadership, we must do better, and that is why in the United Kingdom my party is starting the largest renewal of policy and ideas in a generation.”
The Conservative leader has previously insisted she will not set out a new policy platform in haste.
It comes after senior Tories said that Badenoch “doesn’t listen to anyone” and could soon face a leadership challenge, according to The Sun on Sunday.
One source told the paper she could be ousted after the English local elections in May, at which the Conservatives are expected to perform poorly.
She has said the previous Tory government’s willingness to announce policies without following through was among the reasons voters abandoned it at the last election.
Badenoch described the ARC conference as “part of finding those answers” and said it filled her “with hope”.
She added: “If we get this right, we stand at the dawn of the new Conservative century with so much opportunity and possibility.
“If we throw this opportunity away because of anger or self-doubt or weakness, our country and all of Western civilisation will be lost, and that is why we, the next generation of Conservatives, must lead the world back from the precipice. It is time to speak the truth.”
Badenoch pointed to polling which showed most young people thought Britain was a racist place and would not be prepared to fight for it in a war as evidence of declining faith in the country.
She added: “Our ideas and our culture have dominated the world for well over two centuries. This is not a crisis of values.
“It’s a crisis of confidence that has set in at exactly the same time that we face existential threats.”
Conservatives have “limited time” to convince the electorate to back them in future, Badenoch said, as she argued that the ECHR, instrumental in helping immigrants argue for their human rights, had been “hacked”.
She said: “I believe that loopholes in liberalism have been found and easily exploited. We have been hacked. The rule of law is what builds so much of the West.”
She added: “We were members of this convention for half a century without this madness. What has changed is not the values, it’s the people. They are afraid of creating any kind of conflict.
“They use the most novel and expansive interpretations of human rights law to avoid it, and we see that lack of confidence now in everything from law and order to national defence, a fear of sticking up for young girls being abused by rape gangs over so many decades so as not to upset community relations.”
ARC is an international centre-right political organisation founded by Canadian psychologist and political commentator Jordan Peterson, who spoke on the conference main stage after Badenoch.
