Kemi Badenoch has said she aspires to become Britain’s version of Javier Milei, the Argentinian far-right, chainsaw-wielding president whose driving mission is slashing the size of the state.

Asked whether the UK needed its own Milei and whether she herself fit that role, Badenoch, whose party is languishing in third place in the polls, said: “Yes and yes.”

Milei is a self-described anarcho-capitalist who came to power in 2023 promising to dramatically cut state spending. He has often expressed admiration for Margaret Thatcher.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Badenoch said Milei would be the “template” for her government. She said the Conservatives “cannot be a repository for disenchantment” and must be about “offering hope”, unlike Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

But she admitted that “the public are not yet ready to forgive” the Tories after the political chaos of the last few years and that Reform was “stealing everyone’s oxygen”.

Badenoch argued the public would eventually tire of Farage’s “bullshitting” and claimed he was positioning his party to the left of the Conservatives on issues such as benefits.

She said her own programme, which she is under pressure to set out in more detail, would be “not about cutting bits of the state” but rather “looking at what the state does, why it does it”.

Badenoch dismissed warnings that she may face a Conservative leadership challenge within months amid internal discontent about her leadership.

“I can’t spend all my time worrying about regicide. I would lose my mind,” she told the newspaper. “I’m so thick-skinned to the point where I don’t even notice if people are trying to create harm. That’s extremely useful in this job.”

Badenoch is immune to any challenge until she completes one year as leader in November. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary who was defeated by Badenoch in the Tory leadership contest, has complained about the decline in the “white British” population in parts of the country.

Asked about his remarks, the Tory leader said: “People will use different words from what I would use. I’m not a micromanager.”

She insisted that the Conservatives could be “super tough on immigration without allowing the rhetoric to go out of control”, and that she was right to apologise for her party’s record on the issue in her first speech.

Badenoch said she was now focusing on the economy: “People are hearing more about the economy because I am being very, very relentless in pursuing this particular case, almost to the exclusion of everything else.”

Nonetheless, she is expected to use her first party conference as leader in October to focus on immigration including by setting out her party’s position on membership of the European convention of human rights. Badenoch said last month that she was “increasingly of the view that we will need to leave”.