Thursday, July 9, 2026

UK stagnating, unskilled immigrants adding to pressure: Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK Conservative Party, said on Wednesday that Britain is stagnating while other countries are moving forward.

• October 8, 2025
Badenoch
Badenoch(Photo Credit:BBC)

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK Conservative Party, said on Wednesday that Britain is stagnating while other countries are moving forward.

Ms Badenoch at the Tories’ conference on Wednesday lamented that the influx of hundreds of thousands of unskilled immigrants and their dependents into the UK is putting pressure on the public sector.

“Britain is stagnating while the world around us moves on,”  Ms Badenoch said. “We are competing with restless and ambitious countries around the world. We are competing with a billion people in India, striving to become middle-class. We are competing with economic success stories like Poland. Fifteen years ago, Polish workers came here to find opportunity. Now, Poland is growing twice as fast as we are. While Britain was redefining what a woman is, China was building five nuclear reactors.”

Lamenting the influx of immigrants and their dependents into the UK, the Tory leader said, “We are accepting hundreds of thousands of people, some with many dependents, some with no skills at all.”

For Ms Badenoch, the UK’s “broken immigration model is heaping pressure on our public sector, a public sector which already, every year, demands more and more and more of our money, yet services don’t get better, they get worse”.

The Tory leader doubled down on her threat to deport 750,000 illegal immigrants in five years if her party returns to power. 

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