Kemi Badenoch has declared we “must protect our women and girls” as reacted the “horrific” murder of a woman by an asylum seeker.

Speaking on GB News, the Conservative leader stated that Britain needs a Government “with a backbone and a plan” to tackle the record-breaking small boat crossings.

Sudanese asylum seeker Deng Chol Majek has been found guilty of the murder of asylum hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

Majek arrived in the UK in July last year and the court heard that his asylum claim in Germany was refused by authorities.

Delivering her verdict on the case, Mrs Badenoch told GB News: “It concerns me. I can’t believe that such a horrible thing would happen to the mother of a young child. I’ve got three kids myself, my youngest is six years old. Losing a mum at that age is absolutely horrific.

“We have to get people who are criminals who do not belong here out of our country. We have to stop the boats. Everything else feeds off that, and stopping the boats requires a proper deterrent.”

Highlighting the previous Tory plan to tackle illegal migrants, she added: “We had the Rwanda plan, Labour scrapped that. They had no plan. They did this silly one-in, one-out deal that has now seen more people coming in, and even the people we send away coming back on small boats, it’s not working.

“I’ve said that we have to leave the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights), now that is Conservative Party policy. We tried everything and the legal activists kept interrupting, kept stopping the flights going on, so we will leave the ECHR. That is the first of many steps which we’re going to need in order to control our borders.”

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

• Asylum seeker found guilty of murdering hotel worker with screwdriver
• Man jailed for 42 years after murdering two people and dumping their remains in suitcases
• One of the first rape gang leaders convicted in Britain could be out of prison in weeks

Assuring that the safety the women and girls of Britain is one of her key priorities, Mrs Badenoch stated: “I will speak for you, that’s what I want to say to all those women and girls. Even when I was the equalities minister, I always spoke up for women and girls on various issues and I will continue doing so.

“But at the end of the day, all of this comes back to who can lead our country, who’s got the backbone and who’s got the plan. We made mistakes when we were in Government, the party is now under new leadership. I’m taking us in a different direction.”

She vowed: “We’ve got to protect women and girls, and we’ve got to get criminals out of our society, people who don’t belong here, who arrive on small boats. We need a deterrent, we need a plan, and the Conservatives have a borders plan. We’re going to make sure that we solve this once and for all.”

Questioned by host Dawn Neesom on the safety of women and girls in regards to the grooming gangs inquiry, the Tory leader criticised Labour’s handling of the scandal and admitted her own fears for the safety of her young daughters.

Mrs Badenoch told GB News: “We need a judge-led national inquiry, too much time has been wasted faffing about thinking ‘should we should we have an inquiry? should we not?’. We already had an inquiry that covered all sorts of child sexual abuse, we already have that widened inquiry. And what we saw was that it didn’t find enough information about the grooming gangs.

“So we set up the Grooming Gangs task force, it found 807 perpetrators, that’s an extraordinary number. That’s why we need a national inquiry to find out not just what went on previously, but what is going on now. I believe that there are still young girls being abused and hurt, and we can’t allow fears of being called a racist or whatever nonsense it is that people use to shut down debate. We cannot allow that to silence their voices. There are too many people whose voices haven’t been heard.”

She added: “I, as everyone who’s watching, can see I’m a black woman. I am worried about the safety of my two daughters, even my son. We need to make sure that we create a safe environment for all of our children.

“We need to make sure that we get justice for those victims. That’s why an inquiry needs to start as soon as possible. Labour have wasted a year, they need to get on with it, and they need to get a grip.”