Is it too late for Kemi to turn the Tories around?
Conservative Party Conference proved the Tories are doing some proper thinking on the policies Britain needs, but is Reform’s poll lead already unassailable? Ask William Atkinson
Why go to Conservative Party conference? After five days in Manchester, that question feels rather existential. I’ve only attended professionally. Despite having been a member since I was 15 – I was very popular at school discos – I never went as a Tory Boy. So, I’ve never quite got those who schlep up to our fine Northern cities without panels to address and an expense account to exploit.
That question was especially pertinent this year. At least the party used to be in government; at least last year we had a leadership election, blessed with an air of demob happiness. Last year the party had been liberated from the burden of office, but with Labour plummeting in the polls and the exciting task of finding a new chief, the future could seem vaguely optimistic – even with only 121 MPs.
One year on, and the mood is a tad grimmer. After a year of Kemi Badenoch, the Conservatives are battling to stay out of fourth place. The beneficiary of Labour’s unpopularity has not been the party the electorate booted out only a year and a half ago, but Reform UK. For months, Nigel Farage’s teal army has offered what we have not: a charismatic leader, clear policy positions and a style of self-promotion perfectly tailored to the worlds of Tiktok and GB News.
The Reform threat
Overhanging this year’s conference was the question of whether the Conservatives had any fight in them to haul themselves back into contention. The immediate signs were not promising. There are better populated ghost towns. The members in attendance seemed either very young or very old: the youthfully naïve or the aged and habituated. While this made it easier to get to the Midland’s bar, the contrast with Reform’s effort a month before – surreal but packed – was obvious. There was a collective air of going through the motions, of an unwillingness to admit how dire things were.
Yet once one stopped counting the bodies and started listening, the whole shebang became more interesting. My greatest criticism of Reform’s conference had been its unseriousness – not only the pier show campery, but the obvious lack of talent or interest in policy. By contrast – and for the first time, really, since Badenoch became leader – Toryworld showed that it still possessed the capacity for conscious thought. Fringe events were devoted to detailed discussions of immigration and fiscal policy that were a world away from Reform’s ‘sink the boats, scrap the woke’ bluster.
This extended to the main stage. Robert Jenrick’s challenging of the judiciary may have been overshadowed by his Birmingham comments; Mel Stride’s announcement of £47bn in cuts may not survive prolonged scrutiny. But they both showed a party that had not given up on government. As for Badenoch, she gave the best speech I have known her make.
The rhetoric was hardly Churchillian; the gags occasionally had one pining for Boris Johnson. But her address were packed with attacks on Labour, a clear diagnosis of Britain’s problems, and the beginnings of a route to addressing them. Her stamp duty rabbit-from-a-hat had wonks fawning; if it constitutes a genuine first step towards a Conservative Party that is serious about addressing the housing crisis, one must applaud it. Finally, after almost a year, she had something to say.
But the hour is late. Even if she won the best day’s headlines of her leadership, Badenoch is still constrained by electoral reality, leading a party that most despise. If she cannot sustain this momentum, the same talk about coups surrounding next year’s predictably apocalyptic local elections will start up in no time. And if Manchester seemed bleak this week, one can only shudder at the thought of what awaits next year in Birmingham if a Tory recovery remains elusive.
William Atkinson is assistant content editor at the Spectator