- Badenoch warns "separatist ghettos" are eroding integration
- She says migrants must "join the country" and respect British norms
- Tory leader admits past failure on immigration strategy
- Conservatives third in latest YouGov poll on 19 per cent
CONSERVATIVE leader Kemi Badenoch has warned that "separatist communities" are undermining the integration of migrants, saying people moving to the UK must "join the country".
Speaking at the start of her party's annual conference on Sunday, she said too many arrivals were ignoring the norms that underpin British culture, The Times reported.
"I don't want lots of little ghettos of separatist communities where they are recreating the place that they came from. That will ruin the United Kingdom," she said.
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"We've never had race-based citizenship in this country but I do want to emphasise that British culture means something."
She said a "high-trust country" required newcomers to "sign up to that deal", adding that upholding shared norms "isn't just the government's job".
The remarks come as the Conservatives try to win back voters drawn to Reform UK. In a 95-page essay, The Right Way, published to coincide with the conference, Badenoch admitted: "We promised lower immigration without a strategy for delivering it."
The government is also seeking to make it harder for legal migrants to gain permanent settlement. Former prime minister Keir Starmer warned in May last year that Britain risked becoming an "island of strangers", but later said he regretted the comment.
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The Tories remain third in the polls. A YouGov survey published on September 29 put Reform on 25 per cent, Labour on 24 per cent and the Conservatives on 19 per cent.
Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said Badenoch wanted to "drag our country back to a politics that let so many people down over the past 40 years".
(With inputs from agencies)
