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Badenoch apologises for local election results as Reform warned there are ‘no simple answers’ – UK politics live


Badenoch apologises for local election ‘bloodbath’ in op-ed

Kemi Badenoch has apologised for the “bloodbath” of the local elections in an op-ed piece on Saturday for the Telegraph.

The Conservative party leader wote:

After last year’s historic defeat, and with protest votes cutting across every ballot box, we knew Thursday would be hard. I’m deeply sorry to see so many capable, hard-working Conservative councillors lose their seats. They didn’t deserve it – and they weren’t the reason we lost.

In the piece, Badenoch explained that as party members were voting in the final round of the Conservative party leadership contest, an unnamed male MP took her aside in parliament and warned “the May 2025 locals are going to be a total bloodbath”. She acknowledged that the prediction was right: “The results confirm he was correct. But to be honest, it wasn’t a controversial prediction to make.”

She added:

These local election results show the scale of the work needed to rebuild trust in the Conservative party and the importance of redoubling our efforts to show that this party is under new leadership and is doing things differently.

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Key events

As the Tories faced the Reform surge in the north and parts of the midlands, the Liberal Democrats put the squeeze on their vote further south, gaining more than 100 councillors, PA reports.

The Lib Dems gained 163 councillors across the 23 councils in this election.

“If you’re appalled by lurch to the right by Reform and the others, come and join the Liberal Democrats because we’re the ones taking the challenge to Reform,” Lib Dem MP Munira Wilson told the BBC.

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