MPs must get a veto on deploying British troops in Ukraine and there can be "no blank cheque" for Sir Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch told GB News, adding that "ideally we should not be having any boots on the ground".
The leader of the opposition made clear that she expected the Government to let MPs vote on whether British troops should be deployed to help enforce any peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
So far the Prime Minister has said that MPs will be consulted on any deployment of British troops.
Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, and Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, have both said that there should be a vote of MPs before troops are deployed.
In an interview, Badenoch told GB News: "I think that a vote would be very helpful to know exactly what it is we're voting for, what is it we're giving consent to I told the Prime Minister, that I was not giving him a blank cheque."
Badenoch set out the questions that the Tories would be asking the Government ahead of a deployment.
She said: "Ideally, we should not be having any boots on the ground. What is the situation that's going to be if it does happen, will the US be supporting us, for example? How many people? What happens if they get attacked? Are we then in direct conflict? There's so many questions.
"So it's not about just making an announcement 'oh we’ll put boots on the ground'. These are lives of young British men and women. We need to look after them.
"We can't just send them all around the world just because we want to tell a story or make an announcement. We've got to look after our soldiers.
"We've got to look after our armed forces. So a vote would be helpful in that perspective."
Badenoch also said she wanted to stop "the conveyor belt to British citizenship" by making it harder for immigrants in the UK to become British citizens.
She said she had not heard the remarks by US Vice President JD Vance that large levels of net migration to the UK had made Britain "lazy".
She said: "I think what people mean by that is that there's a big difference between high skilled versus low skilled immigration."
"Scientific bodies were crying out for highly skilled workers, rather than migrants with lower skills," she said.
She added: "When you have lots of people coming in with low skills doing low wages, it drags wages down which means some people decide it's not worth working and they stay at home creating a benefits problem, so it's all interlinked, and we need to fix it."
Badenoch said that she was not going to commit to leaving the European Convention on Human Rights when there was no "credible plan".
She said: "I've always said that if we need to leave the ECHR, we should leave and that it's not a silver bullet. It's not the most radical thing we could do.
"There are so many laws that are causing problems, and we need to look at all of them in the round. And I learned this lesson from what happened during Brexit.
"I wasn't an MP when that referendum took place, and I became an MP in 2017 and saw that there had been no plan. And what I'm saying now is that I'm not just going to rush out and say we're going to leave this."
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The leader of the opposition made clear that she expected the Government to let MPs vote on whether British troops should be deployed to help enforce any peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
So far the Prime Minister has said that MPs will be consulted on any deployment of British troops.
Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, and Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, have both said that there should be a vote of MPs before troops are deployed.
In an interview, Badenoch told GB News: "I think that a vote would be very helpful to know exactly what it is we're voting for, what is it we're giving consent to I told the Prime Minister, that I was not giving him a blank cheque."
Badenoch set out the questions that the Tories would be asking the Government ahead of a deployment.
She said: "Ideally, we should not be having any boots on the ground. What is the situation that's going to be if it does happen, will the US be supporting us, for example? How many people? What happens if they get attacked? Are we then in direct conflict? There's so many questions.
"So it's not about just making an announcement 'oh we’ll put boots on the ground'. These are lives of young British men and women. We need to look after them.
"We can't just send them all around the world just because we want to tell a story or make an announcement. We've got to look after our soldiers.
"We've got to look after our armed forces. So a vote would be helpful in that perspective."
Badenoch also said she wanted to stop "the conveyor belt to British citizenship" by making it harder for immigrants in the UK to become British citizens.
She said she had not heard the remarks by US Vice President JD Vance that large levels of net migration to the UK had made Britain "lazy".
She said: "I think what people mean by that is that there's a big difference between high skilled versus low skilled immigration."
"Scientific bodies were crying out for highly skilled workers, rather than migrants with lower skills," she said.
She added: "When you have lots of people coming in with low skills doing low wages, it drags wages down which means some people decide it's not worth working and they stay at home creating a benefits problem, so it's all interlinked, and we need to fix it."
Badenoch said that she was not going to commit to leaving the European Convention on Human Rights when there was no "credible plan".
She said: "I've always said that if we need to leave the ECHR, we should leave and that it's not a silver bullet. It's not the most radical thing we could do.
"There are so many laws that are causing problems, and we need to look at all of them in the round. And I learned this lesson from what happened during Brexit.
"I wasn't an MP when that referendum took place, and I became an MP in 2017 and saw that there had been no plan. And what I'm saying now is that I'm not just going to rush out and say we're going to leave this."
Find Out More...