Badenoch Mocks Starmer’s Exit: ‘You were a terrible Prime Minister’

Leader of the UK Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has launched an attack on Keir Starmer following his shock resignation as Prime Minister, describing him as “a terrible Prime Minister.”

Starmer announced on Monday that he would resign as Labour leader and Prime Minister after less than two years in office, but said he would remain in Downing Street until his party elects a successor.

Reacting to the development in a post on X, Badenoch said Starmer’s fall was the result of failures by his government, insisting that Britain’s problems were not impossible to solve.

According to her, the Labour government had made wrong choices on taxation, welfare, defence, energy and public trust.

“Hiking national insurance. The Family Farm Tax. Giving up on real welfare reform. Not funding our defence. Not drilling our own oil and gas. Appointing Peter Mandelson… then lying about what had happened,” she wrote.

“Britain is not ungovernable. Keir Starmer is a terrible Prime Minister.”

Badenoch, who leads the opposition Conservatives, also argued that the crisis was bigger than Starmer alone.

She accused Labour MPs of supporting higher taxes in order to fund increased welfare spending, saying the party’s current troubles reflected its values and policy choices.

“But the problem isn’t just Starmer. Labour MPs only want higher taxes to hand out more benefits, as the Welfare Secretary has pointed out. These are Labour’s choices and their values, regardless of who is running the party,” she added.

The Conservative leader said Britain needed a return to Tory leadership.

“We need to get Britain working again. We need the Conservatives,” Badenoch said.

Starmer’s resignation followed months of pressure over policy reversals, poor approval ratings and growing discontent within the Labour Party.

In his resignation speech outside 10 Downing Street, Starmer said he had accepted that Labour MPs no longer believed he was the right person to lead the party into the next general election.

He said he had informed King Charles of his decision and would remain in office to ensure an orderly transfer of power.