Kemi Badenoch ‘unlikely to win’ next election, says Liz Truss

Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives are “unlikely to win the election”, Liz Truss has said as she declined to rule out a bid to return to frontline politics.

Britain’s shortest serving prime minister told a podcast that her party’s refusal to “acknowledge” its failure to take on a “leftist establishment” meant it was destined for defeat at the next general election.

Speaking to The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, Ms Truss said she would “never rule anything out” when it came to returning to politics, but refused to answer either way when asked whether this would be with the Tories or Reform UK.

Ms Truss has had a fractious relationship with her successor-but-one, previously accusing Mrs Badenoch of “repeating spurious narratives” after she said the former prime minister carried “quite a lot of” responsibility for the Conservatives’ record in office.

Asked whether she thought Reform’s Nigel Farage was “more likely to deliver” than Mrs Badenoch, Ms Truss said: “I think the way the Conservative Party is going, they’re unlikely to win the election.”

She added: “They’re not prepared to acknowledge what happened over the past 14 years and the failings to really take on what I would describe as the leftist establishment. So I don’t think she’s going to be prime minister at this stage.”

But asked whether she wanted to join Reform UK, she did not give a direct answer, saying: “What I am absolutely concerned to make happen is that the British state itself needs to change.

“It doesn’t matter who’s in No 10, if the same people are still in charge of the Treasury, the Office of Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England, the Supreme Court, it doesn’t matter.”

Declining to rule out a return to frontline politics after losing her seat last year, she added: “What I’ve always been obsessed with is I want Britain to be a great nation again, and I’m depressed about how far we’ve sunk, the dire state our economy is in, the de-industrialisation, the fact that we don’t make things the same way we used to.

“We are not a leader in many areas. I want to help fix that in any way I can.”