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Kemi Badenoch has called for Donald Trump-style mass deportations and the building of a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Parliament Square, in what appears to be a last ditch attempt to win over Reform voters ahead of the local elections.
The Tory leader said she “absolutely” would support mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, adding: “It's not going to be easy, but you've got to start from somewhere”.
It comes after Tory peer and pollster Lord Hayward predicted a devastating night for his own party at the local elections, taking place on Thursday.
Voters in 23 local authorities across England will go to the polls on 1 May to choose their new councillors, with mayors also up for election across six regions. It will be the first big electoral test for the parties since last summer’s general election, and more than half of the council seats up for grabs are currently held by the Conservatives.
Lord Hayward said he expects the Tories to lose between 475 and 525 local authority seats, predicting that the party, which is defending nearly 1,000 seats, will only win between 375 and 425.
Speaking to ITV, he also painted a grim picture for Labour. While he does not expect the party to see a notable change in overall seat numbers, the pollster warned they will fail to take seats in the Midlands and North that he argues “they should have won”.
These areas will instead see heavy gains for Reform UK, the pollster predicted. In total, he expects Nigel Farage’s party to make significant gains, winning between 400 and 450 seats.
Speaking to BBC 5Live, the Tory leader said: “We need to make sure that we remove foreign criminals from our country. And we actually put down an amendment that says that we will deport. It's not going to be easy, but you've got to start from somewhere. If you start from the position of, ‘oh well, it can't be done, then you're never going to do it’.
“We have a problem now with immigration being too high. I have acknowledged that that happened under the Conservatives' watch. I was not in charge. I am now. And that is something that we are going to fix.”
Asked if she would commit to mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, Mrs Badenoch said: “Of foreign criminals? Absolutely. If people are in the country illegally, then they should be deported. That is the law. Otherwise you're rewarding people for breaking the law.”
The Conservatives are attempting to regain control of the narrative on immigration, seemingly going even further than Mr Farage who has said he would not support Trump-style mass deportations.
Mrs Badenoch also told the BBC she thinks that there should be a “statue of Margaret Thatcher outside Parliament”.
“There's one that's near the chamber of the House of Commons that's inside, but most people would never see that. I think she's such an iconic figure. It's odd that she isn't there”, she said.
“And I remember having this conversation about 15 years ago, long before I became an MP, and the person said, ‘oh, they'd be really worried about the statue being defaced’.
“And then what did we see last weekend or two weekends ago? People are defacing every statue of Millicent Fawcett. For goodness sake, I think we need to treat the statues with a bit more respect.”
English (US) ·