Kemi Badenoch says Tories WILL play national anthem to end conference after row with MPs

The Romford MP claimed Conservatives had initially opted to replace God Save the King with pop music.

When pushed on whether the national anthem would play at the close of conference, Mrs Badenoch said: “Well, we are going to have it on Wednesday.”

She added: “Well, we played it on Sunday, right? That's not something to worry about.”

The Tory Party did open its 2025 party conference in Manchester by playing God Save the King.

However, it was at a particularly flat stage of Conservative Party Conference, in front of an almost empty main hall.

Tory sources also pointed out that the national anthem was only played last year "because all four candidates were on stage doing a display of national unity".

Mr Rosindell’s campaign to play God Save the King follows a series of other anthem-themed pursuits by the 59-year-old MP.

He had pushed the Tories to play the national anthem in 2021 and urged the BBC to close its daily coverage with a rendition of God Save the King.

The national anthem had been a regular fixture of Tory Party conferences under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher.

However, following the Conservatives' humiliating defeat of 1997, God Save the Queen was dropped from the conference schedule.

Land of Hope and Glory had been considered the unofficial anthem of the Tory Party throughout the 20th Century, with Sir Winston Churchill closing the party's 1949 conference with a rendition in London.

Other political parties have also closed their respective conferences with patriotic songs for decades.

Labour closed its 2025 party conference in Liverpool with renditions of both the Red Flag and Jerusalem.

Sir Keir Starmer previously decided to open Labour's 2022 party conference with God Save the King following the death of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage closed Reform UK's annual conference in Birmingham last month with the national anthem.

There had been fears that Mrs Badenoch’s initial decision to play pop music might have resulted in some interesting song choices to close the party conference.

During last year’s conference season, Mrs Badenoch made a 15-part Spotify playlist as part of the leadership race.

The playlist included Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson, I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas and London Boy by Taylor Swift.