Kemi Badenoch has claimed that accusations she is being lined up by plotters to replace Rishi Sunak as leader have led to death threats against her.
The Business and Trade Secretary, who is being billed as the leading contender to potentially take over from Mr Sunak, took furious aim at her former ministerial colleague Nadine Dorries who she claims has stoked the hate against her.
Ms Dorries, a Boris Johnson ally and former Culture Secretary, has alleged in her book The Plot that the same people who deposed Mr Johnson are now working to install Ms Badenoch as the new leader.
The former Culture Secretary has named long-term Tory party fixer Dougie Smith and Ms Badenoch’s mentor Michael Gove as being behind the current plotting.
But speaking to The Times for an in-depth interview Ms Badenoch has hit back properly for the first time.
Responding to Ms Dorries’ claim that she is a puppet for powerful men, she said: “If there’s somebody who is doing that, wouldn’t it be the person who goes to bed with me every night and pays for my home and so on? [My husband] Hamish is a huge influence on how I do things. Which I think is right, because this job affects his life.”
Showing the interviewer a threatening message that she has received on her phone, she claimed that they had intensified since The Plot was published.
Ms Badenoch said: “She [Dorries] thinks she’s just writing stuff, but people who have that kind of mindset latch on to it. If you get the unhelpful coalition of mental health issues and propensity to violence, then you read the Nadine Dorries conspiracy theory and decide you want to kill someone, it’s very, very nasty.”
Badenoch particularly dislikes the claim that she is a puppet for Michael Gove: “As if I have no thoughts and no opinions of my own.”
And she is angered that her best speeches were attributed to him, noting: “Like they’re saying, ‘She’s not that bright. It’s some man who is doing this.’”
Added to that there appears to have been a cooling of the relationship between Badenoch and Gove after the Levelling Up Secretary had a relationship with a friend of the Business and Trade Secretary causing that person’s marriage to break up.
Badenoch said: “He [Gove] did something that was very, very annoying. It[their friendship] is not what it used to be, but he’s somebody I have to work with.”
She also claims that Dorries tried to stop her from running for leader and go for London Mayor instead.
But Ms Dorries though has retaliated on Twitter.
The former MP said: “Kemi Badenoch gives an interview in the Times today where she obsesses slightly about THE PLOT and makes this untrue claim. I’ll post the WhatsApp exchange next to prove it.”
She then went on: “The implication is that Kemi was running for leader and I suggested she bail and run for London Mayor instead. Kemi was knocked out of the leadership race on July 18 2022.
“On 20th I interviewed a party donor for the THE PLOT. He was involved with establishing the interview process for Mayoral candidates and asked me for Kemi’s number.
“I never just give out numbers, so I messaged Kemi. X placement to protect identity.
“‘With XXX asking me would you stand for Mayor of London. I’ve said you prob need a rest but they are already getting going so let me know if I should give them your numberXxx’ It wasn’t my suggestion at all.”
“She [Badenoch] replied ‘Nah. I’m good thanks. Don’t give them my number.’
“In THE PLOT the assertion is made that Rishi was only ever a stop gap. That Kemi was the project.
“Kemi didn’t need the help. She knew, whoever won, Rishi or Liz, they were just the caretaker until her closest friend, Dougie Smith and mentor and the rest of the plotters were ready to pop her into place.
“And, that is exactly what is happening before your very eyes right now and you heard it first in THE PLOT.”
Ms Badenoch’s extraordinary interview also reveals how she had a near death experience with flash flood.
She described returning in April from a constituency event with her husband in the family car.
“I always used to think, ‘How do people die in flash floods?’ But the water came from nowhere. And there was just a slight dip in the road and suddenly, all the electrics went off. We got out of the car. The water was thick and strong and fast. We were wading, waist deep, and it was pitch-black. I had heels on! The car got written off.”
She added: “There could have been a by-election.”
