Kemi Badenoch says ‘western civilisation will be lost’ if Tory party fails

Kemi Badenoch was speaking on the first day of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Kemi Badenoch has said “our country and all of western civilisation will be lost” if efforts to renew the Conservative party and drive forward rightwing ideas globally fail.

Likening her own leadership to Donald Trump’s second term, she used a gathering of fellow conservatives to attack Keir Starmer for taking the knee in a nod to Black Lives Matter and described “pronouns, diversity policies and climate activism” as a “poison”.