KEMI Badenoch has denied that the defection of MP Danny Kruger to Reform UK is a sign that the Conservative Party is finished as a meaningful political force.

Asked if the defection was a political disaster, she told Andrew Pierce on GB News: “What this is actually showing is that there are quite a lot of people who are distracted by Westminster politics rather than what is actually going on in our country.

“Our Prime Minister is having a political crisis. The economy is in free fall. There’s only one party that is dealing with this. We’re the ones who have hauled him to talk about the ambassador he needed to sack, Peter Mandelson.

“We’re the ones who started pointing to his Deputy Prime Minister’s failure on her property issues, not paying her taxes. While we were doing that, where was Nigel Farage? In the US telling everyone our country is North Korea.

“The fact of the matter is the biggest issue facing the country now is the economy. We need to live within our means, and no one, except the Conservative Party, is focused on that.

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“If people don’t want to sit within the new policies that we’re talking about, then I can understand but I need to make sure that my party continues to face the key issues the country is dealing with right now, and that is what Labour is doing to our country.”

On criticism from Kruger that she had “disappeared” from public view for a year, Badenoch said: “The fact that, well, you can see that I’m literally on here talking to you right now, as I am every single day, making a lot of the case for why Labour is going in the wrong direction and why we need to fix it.

“I’m not here to say that Conservative Party got everything perfect. If we did, we would not have lost the election last year. My job is to make sure that we have a proper plan for government. There is not an election today. There is an election in four years’ time, and we are using our time wisely to make sure that people understand what we’re about.

“That’s why today I’m on a farm here talking about the family farms tax. There are farmers in this country who are closing down. We’ve heard reports about suicides because they can’t deal with Labour’s tax burden. So I’m out here talking about what real people are dealing with, while other people are holding press conferences in Westminster talking about who’s shifting to which party. That is not what most of your viewers care about.

“They care about who’s going to make their lives better. And I’m the only person right now who is focused on talking about that.”

She added: “One of the things that has caused concern is the strict policies I’m putting in on welfare. We need to live within our means. The Conservative Party is the only party, for example, that wants to make sure that we have a two-child benefit cap.

“I know Danny had written a paper about how that should be lifted, so there are policy disagreements, but if people are leaving because of policy disagreements, then that means that the message that I’m putting out there is clear, but if people are leaving just because of poll ratings, then we have a problem.

“What we saw with Labour was that they were telling people everything they wanted to hear. They got into government and they didn’t know what to do. We now see Reform doing the same thing. They’re telling everybody what they want to hear, but they don’t actually have a plan for how they’re going to fix government.

“If the only way they can solve that is by stealing Conservatives, then I think that that actually makes my case. What I’m doing is working on a plan, and at the election, the public is going to have a choice between serious fiscal responsibility with Conservatives or people who are just telling everyone whatever they want to hear, which is actually what Labour and Reform have in common.”

On the prospect of other MPs defecting, she said: “What I know is that this is part of the process of us making sure that we can define what the Conservative Party means for the future. We just suffered a historic defeat. What is amazing is that the government is also now having a crash in its poll ratings because it did not have a plan for dealing with the very serious problems that our country has, especially to do with the economy.

“Anybody who thinks that this is all about poll ratings and who’s up or who’s down is not paying attention. This is not a problem that is just affecting the UK. France is having a similar problem. We have a huge issue across the western world, and we need parties that are going to be serious and who are going to focus on that.

“That is what I’m making sure the Conservative Party is going to be able to do. That’s why I’m here on a farm talking about real, everyday issues. How do we make sure that we have food security? How do we make sure that we have farming fit for the next generation? How do we make sure that we encourage people to stay in our country to be entrepreneurs? That’s what it’s all about.

“If people decide that they don’t like the policies we have and they want to go to other parties, we will get other people who agree with us. It is a long process. It’s not a short process. It’s going to be very tough, but I’m a tough person. I can deal with it.”

Asked if the Conservative Party was finished, she said: “If it was finished, then we wouldn’t be seeing Labour in real trouble with the loss of their ambassador just before they have a state visit. The fact of the matter is the Conservative Party is the only opposition while we were out there pointing out the Labour was bringing in tax rises while the Deputy Prime Minister wasn’t paying her taxes.

“Where was Nigel Farage? In the US telling everyone that our country was North Korea. I am here acting in the British national interest, not here just doing this because it’s showbiz or because it’s a game. I care about the people in this country. I care about the children that we’re bringing up, what sort of country they’re going to have, what sort of society they’re going to grow up in. And I’m very focused on those issues.

“The Conservative Party is the only party that can deal with this, and I’m making sure that we’re getting fit for the next election.”