Conservative Party leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has vowed to “have fun” from the Opposition benches but warned that MPs can “be in government and not have power”.

In her pitch to Conservative activists at the party conference in Birmingham, the North West Essex MP said she wanted to make her Labour rivals in Government “wriggle” and “sweat”.

Ms Badenoch said: “I am no longer a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed backbencher. I am a veteran of four government departments and a former cabinet minister.

Kemi Badenoch faces (left-right) Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat in the Conservative Party leadership race - pictured standing side by side on stage
Kemi Badenoch faces (left-right) Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat in the Conservative Party leadership race (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

“I have seen the system from the inside. Ladies and gentlemen, the system is broken.

“It is not enough just to be in government, because you can be in government and not have power.

“Without a plan to fix the system you end up just announcing policies, doing media and waiting for something to happen, and then you run into trouble, as this Labour Government are quickly finding out.

“For us it led to a reckoning, a historic defeat worse than 1997, a defeat that could extinguish the Conservative Party. We have to get this right.”

The shadow communities secretary later said: “I’m sad to be in Opposition but there’s a part of me that’s excited because Opposition is an opportunity: an opportunity to make Angie (Angela Rayner) uncomfortable, to make Rachel (Reeves) wriggle and make (Sir Keir) Starmer sweat.

“We are going to have fun.”

She criticised “identity politics”, and added: “If you call communism environmentalism, you can close down businesses, block the roads, and stop people going to work.”

Ms Badenoch also hit back at “some people” who “say I like a fight”.

She said: “It’s not true: I do not like to fight but I’m not afraid to fight. I don’t fight for the sake of fighting, but I do fight for you.

“Every day of the last parliament I fought for Conservative values.

“I fought for them even when I was told it wasn’t in my interest – I fought for women’s rights to safe spaces and children’s rights to grow up in their own time.

“I fought against those who seek to divide our country based on race, I fought for the future of my three children and for your children.

“I will always fight against left-wing nonsense.”