Kemi Badenoch has said the Conservatives have “values of the right” but that “will appeal to the majority”.
The Tory leader listed policies including lower taxes on business and improving education standards as ones that define her party.
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Speaking to Sky’s political correspondent Mhari Aurora, Ms Badenoch said: “Delivering a stronger economy; lower taxes; backing business; making sure that our children have a better future; pushing aspiration; improving education standards; getting kids off social media; delivering stronger borders by leaving the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights], and so much more. That’s what we’re about.
“These are policies that are firmly on the right but will appeal to the majority,” she said.
Ms Badenoch said that as leader, it was down to her to set her party’s policy agenda.
She was referring to Prosper UK, a centre-right movement set up by Sir Andy Street and former Tory Scottish leader Baroness Ruth Davidson, calling for the party to attract voters by occupying the centre ground. It has claimed moving to the centre ground will provide a point of difference with Reform UK.
“I want people to know the Conservative Party is sitting right on the common ground… I’m very welcoming of people having their own opinions. But I am the party leader,” Ms Badenoch said.
She said it was not about a battle of left-wing and right-wing, but about “right and wrong”.
“We need to stop fighting the battles of the past. Most people out there want to hear about how their lives are going to be better, and we’re showing that we have got a plan,” Ms Badenoch said.
She added that the Conservatives had tried to be a left-wing party in government and had “lost our way”.
“So I’m not repeating those mistakes of the past,” she said.
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In a speech delivered in central London on Wednesday morning, Ms Badenoch claimed both Reform UK and Labour had proven themselves to be “drama queens”.
She said that recent defections from her party to Reform were about personal ambition.
“This is a tantrum dressed up as politics,” she told a room of Tory MPs and journalists.
In what appeared to be a message to her former colleagues Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, she said: “To those who are defecting, who don’t actually disagree with our policies, I will say: I’m sorry you didn’t win the leadership contest.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get a job in the shadow cabinet. I’m sorry you didn’t get into the Lords. But you are not offering a plan to fix this country.”
She announced her party is looking for its “next generation” of MPs, and invited applications.
“We are building an army that is going to deliver meritocracy, dismantle the bureaucratic class, and get Britain working again,” she said.
Ms Badenoch also said that a statement saying the Conservatives had tried to look after Ms Braverman’s mental health should never have gone out.
After Ms Braverman defected to Reform UK on Monday, the Tories put out a statement saying: “It was always a matter of when, not if, Suella [Braverman] would defect. The Conservatives did all we could to look after Suella’s mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy.”
The party retracted the statement later that day following a backlash.
Ms Badenoch told Sky News that after she discovered the statement had gone out she had it retracted immediately and the person who sent it had been “spoken to”.
“That’s not the sort of party that I’m running, and what I want people to see is that when we get things wrong, we own up, we apologise and we do something to fix it,” she said.
“That’s the difference between the Conservatives and all the other parties.”
