The UK’s opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has said she sees Argentine President Javier Milei as a “template” for what she would do with the British economy.

Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, was asked in an interview with the Financial Times whether the UK needed a politician like Milei, whose government has been characterized by aggressive public spending cuts, and whether she was that kind of politician. She replied “yes and yes.”

Describing Milei as “the template,” she said that Milei was honest with the electorate and had managed to deliver results.

Like Milei, Badenoch has advocated for a smaller state and lower taxes. She also holds conservative views on gender and immigration. Milei is an economist who campaigned primarily on an economically libertarian platform. 

After softening his rhetoric on gender and immigration during his first year in office, the Argentine leader has become increasingly vocal about these issues once again in 2025. In January, he told the World Economic Forum gathering at Davos that LGBTQ+ activists were “pedophiles,” that the concept of femicide (the killing of a woman or girl because of her gender) “legalizes that a woman’s life is worth more than a man’s,” and that open-border policies in western countries would end in “inverse colonization.”

In May, his government passed an immigration decree making it harder for migrants to get healthcare, education, and citizenship in Argentina.

Spokespersons for Milei’s team did not respond to requests for comment about Badenoch’s statements.

The Conservative leader told her interviewers that her focus was the economy. “People are hearing more about the economy because I am being very, very relentless in pursuing this particular case, almost to the exclusion of everything else,” she said.

Badenoch is a member of parliament representing North West Essex, and became leader of the Conservative party, Britain’s main opposition party, in November 2024. The Tories, as the party is often known, were Britain’s ruling party for 14 years — before suffering their worst loss ever to Labour in the July 2024 general elections, losing 251 parliamentary seats. 

The party has struggled to fend off competition from the far-right populist and anti-immigrant party, Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage. Badenoch is polling behind both Farage and Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

Badenoch said that Reform was “stealing everyone’s oxygen.” She accused Farage of taking a more left-wing stance by proposing to nationalize industries and lift a cap on child welfare.

The FT noted that Badenoch has been light on the details of what she’d cut. However, she did tell her interviewers: “It’s not about cutting bits of the state […] It’s about looking at what the state does, why it does it.”

Photo: Kemi Badenoch, courtesy of Conservative Party