Kemi Badenoch must quit now to save the Conservative Party
Last week’s local election results were an extinction-level event for the Conservative Party. To prevent Nigel Farage becoming the real leader of the British right, Kemi Badenoch must resign now, says William Atkinson
Amid stiff competition from their Canadian and Australian counterparts, the Conservatives’ local election disaster was the worst performance for a centre-right party in the last week.
This might not seem immediately apparent. Across the Atlantic and down in the Antipodes, Pierre Poilievre’s Tories and Peter Dutton’s Liberals lost parliamentary elections they had been on track to win before Donald Trump’s return blew a big orange hole in their campaigns. Both party leaders suffered the humiliation of losing their seats to the resurgent centre-left governments of Mark Carney and Anthony Albanese. Voters disliked the incumbents, but they disliked Trump more.
By contrast, last Thursday’s stakes were much lower – local authorities, not national parliaments. Since nine councils took Angela Rayner’s offer of delaying for a year, a smaller number of councillors were up for election than at any time since 1975. English local government is an absurdity – confusingly organised, crippled by statutory obligations and bankrupt. In effect, this was one big, government-organised opinion poll, with the prize of running bin collections for the winner.
A wipeout in the Tory heartlands
Yet even if Poilievre and Dutton are downcast, their results were not terminal. Their parties remain the main opposition. Once voters have adjusted to the turbulence of Trump 2.0 and noticed again just how dismal their governments are, both will challenge for power at their next elections. Conversely, last Thursday wasn’t just dismal for our Tories, but an extinction-level event – a wipeout in their heartlands. From Lincolnshire to Staffordshire, Kent to Cornwall, the party’s support collapsed.
Losing 676 councillors and 16 councils is bad enough. But the paltry 15 per cent the Tories won in the national vote share is appalling. It places them behind Reform UK, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and constitutes the party’s second worst ever performance at a national election, behind the fifth-place finish and nine per cent achieved at the 2019 European Elections.
That indignity ended Theresa May’s premiership. Similarly, it is now a case not of if Kemi Badenoch departs as leader, but when. Excuses can be made. Last July, the party suffered its worst ever general election defeat. She has only been leader for six months; the Tories are habituated to regicide. But the unhappy reality for Badenoch’s dwindling number of defenders is that she is an active barrier to the party’s survival. She is not a solution to the party’s problems. She is the problem.
The unhappy reality for Badenoch’s dwindling number of defenders is that she is an active barrier to the party’s survival. She is not a solution to the party’s problems. She is the problem
Despite last year’s defeat, when Badenoch became Tory leader, the party led in the polls. Her greatest asset was that she was a new face. Yet the more public sees of her, the more they dislike her. She has a -22 approval rating amongst Reform voters; only eight per cent saw her as a future PM in a Channel 4 poll, a third as many as saw Nigel Farage with the keys to No 10. She scorns the media and lacks an agenda. Politics is polarising between Labour vs Reform; she is an irrelevance. Do Tory MPs believe that will change?
If last Thursday’s results were replicated at a general election, the Conservatives would be left with just 12 seats. Next May there will be a bumper crop of elections: 149 councils, and the Scottish and Welsh assemblies. If Badenoch continues as is, the next year will see Farage go unchallenged as the real leader of the British right. If the polls continue deteriorating, a total Tory wipeout looms. Voters will have pronounced their verdict: the Conservatives, as a serious political force, will be dead.
If Tory MPs want to prevent that, Badenoch’s departure, voluntary or not, needs to come immediately. Waiting until after conference – or next May – will only make the crisis worse. This is the endgame.
William Atkinson is assistant content editor at The Spectator