Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK Conservative Party, has warned that sacking her or changing the party leader will not fix the Tories after their poor outing in the local elections held on May 1.

Ms Badenoch made this statement after her party lost 674 council seats and control of 16 authorities, while the Nigel Farage-led Reform UK won 10 councils, gaining 677 councillors.

“Reform had a good night. We had a bad night. And what this shows for a lot of people who hoped that just changing leader again would fix everything is that that’s not going to be enough,” Ms Badenoch told the BBC on Sunday.

Ms Badenoch, who succeeded Rishi Sunak in November 2024 — about six months ago — said, “We tried that previously. And that brought us to a historic defeat.”

The Tory leader said her party will come up with a plan to return to power but will not rush to sweet-talk the public just to win elections.

“We are going to come out with the policies that people want to see, but what we are not going to do is rush out and tell the public things that are not true just so we can win votes,” Ms Badenoch said.

She added, “This is not about winning elections; this is about fixing our country. Yes, of course, you need to win elections to do that, but you also need a credible plan.”