A key component of Kemi Badenoch’s pitch to the country is that ‘you will always know where you stand with me’. Yesterday, out on the local elections campaign trail, the Tory leader jumped at the opportunity to prove it.

You may not agree with me, but you will always know where you stand with me.

Today in Billericay, a heckler tried to shout me down as I spoke about the normalisation of hatred towards Jews. I did not back down, because it needs to be said. British Jews are being targeted and… pic.twitter.com/mVrb9EBHdD

— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) May 4, 2026

During a stump speech in Billericay, in Essex, Badenoch was accosted by a tedious heckler, deploying the classic buzzwords of ‘anti-Muslim hate’ and ‘pro-Palestine’. As the Tory leader tried to discuss soaring incidents of antisemitic hatred, the enterprising social justice warrior decided that this was not, apparently, a topic worth addressing. Instead, they demanded more focus on ‘the rise of attacks on the Muslim people’. The concerned member of the public added: ‘Are they not worth protecting?’

Badenoch kept her cool as she dismantled the woke warrior’s intervention

In a clip that has now gone viral, Badenoch kept her cool as she dismantled the woke warrior’s intervention. ‘The people who have died and who have been killed were Jewish people in synagogues,’ the Conservative chief explained. ‘Let’s stop pretending that something else is happening.’

The heckler continued to lay into the Tory leader, but Badenoch, while maintaining complete composure, was having none of it. After engaging politely for two minutes, she left the scene with her head held high and the woke apparatchik suitably shut down.

Describing the incident later on X, Badenoch said: ‘I will always engage with people who disagree with me. That is politics. But there is a difference between argument and intimidation.

‘Shouting does not make a bad case good. It’s done to silence others. And it certainly does not change the truth.’