Badenoch says Trump earned midterm loss, faults tariffs and Iran plan

Kemi Badenoch, who leads Britain's Conservative Party and serves as Leader of the Opposition, has said Donald Trump got the result he brought on himself in this week's United States midterm elections.

Speaking to The Independent, she said the US president's conduct did not match what she regards as conservative. Asked whether Trump deserved to lose, she answered yes, adding that he had not been acting the way she would consider conservative.

The Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday's vote, according to the reports. They flipped at least seven Senate seats and more than two dozen House districts, a heavy setback for Trump's Republican Party.

Tariffs, allies and the Iran war

Badenoch pointed to Trump's tariffs and his threats towards Canada and Greenland as evidence that he had drifted from conservative ideas about open markets and trade. She asked where the push for free markets and better trade had gone, in place of protectionism, an America-first stance and quarrels with allies.

She also said his public attacks on journalists and other individuals fall short of what a statesman should do, describing a tendency to trade insults. She singled out his remarks about British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and called his treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House awful.

On the war with Iran, Badenoch said she backed Trump's initial military action because of concerns that Iran could obtain nuclear weapons. Her worry, she said, was the absence of a clear plan.

She also suggested she would not have been troubled if Trump had lost the 2024 presidential election to Kamala Harris. Asked which of the two she preferred, she said she likes them both equally and left it at that.

According to the reports, Badenoch argued that Trump had thrown away the wide coalition that carried him to the White House, including Latino voters and more Black voters than any earlier Republican candidate. She said many of those supporters were left asking what he was doing when he moved first on tariffs and then on Greenland and Canada.

Who she is

Badenoch became Conservative leader in November 2024 after beating Robert Jenrick in the party's leadership contest. She was previously Business and Trade Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities under former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Born Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke in London in 1980 to Nigerian parents, she is a familiar figure to many Nigerians. Her comments add to wider criticism of Trump's handling of the economy and foreign policy after the Republican losses.