Badenoch Opens Conservative Conference With Immigration Push

Kemi Badenoch opened the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Sunday with a pledge to toughen immigration controls, but she arrived under acute pressure from poor polls, recent defections and plans by critics inside her party to test her leadership once her one year of protection expires in early November. The conference has become a focal point for both policy launches and a wider struggle over the party’s direction ahead of next year’s local elections and the next general election.

Badenoch used her opening address to repeat proposals to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Convention on Human Rights and to create a new Removals Force modelled on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The party published a package of measures proposing the deportation of 750,000 people over five years and setting annual deportation targets. She told delegates, "I am black, I am a woman, I am a conservative, and I know that identity politics is a trap," arguing a shared national culture and tighter borders are central to electoral recovery.

The announcements followed a week of damaging headlines for the Conservatives. A senior veteran of London local government,...