Kemi Badenoch can't save the Tories from their troubles

The UK Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, is in trouble. Despite the public smiles at what the party proclaimed was its successful annual conference in Manchester, it has yet to recover from losing last year’s general election.

Now, in 2025, it seems to have lost its way. By next year, it may lose yet another failed leader since privately many Conservatives accept that Ms Badenoch has been a disappointment. Leadership requires what might be called “followership” and there is no sign of increased numbers of followers for Ms Badenoch or the Conservative party. Quite the reverse.

The opinion polls are dismal. So are Conservative party membership numbers, believed to be at a post-Second World War low.

Ms Badenoch has seemed a weak performer in Parliament, poorly briefed and awkward in media appearances. She often disappoints in her weekly chance to shine in the House of Commons – during Prime Minister’s Questions. Effective British opposition leaders use the televised theatre of “PMQs” to establish their reputations. They make incisive, acerbic and amusing attacks on the prime minister of the day.

If Ms Badenoch has a sense of humour, it is very much a hidden talent. Her most recent media gaffe is both striking and – frankly – unforgivable for someone who leads what used to be called the “Conservative and Unionist Party”. On a Northern Ireland TV news interview, she insisted that “the last time I checked” the people of Northern Ireland voted to leave the EU in the Brexit vote of 2016.

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Ms Badenoch could not have done much “checking”. Northern Ireland very decisively voted by 56 per cent to 44 per cent in favour of remaining in the EU. This is still a sore point in Northern Ireland and in Scotland, too, where voters also decisively chose to remain yet were taken out of the EU against their will by the votes of people in Wales and England.

Worse, Brexit caused serious disruption to trade in Northern Ireland, and to peace itself, disrupting businesses, cross-border travel and the peace established by the Good Friday Agreement. In other words, Brexit reignited the most dangerous political question of the Northern Ireland border with the Irish Republic, and – as Ms Badenoch’s ignorance seemed to prove – demonstrated that some top English politicians care about England but have no clue about the other parts of the UK.

And so, as the Conservative party emerges from its annual conference, whatever the well-rehearsed public shows of unity, privately some key figures believe Ms Badenoch’s days as leader are numbered. They doubt she will last long enough to lead them into the next general election, probably in 2028 or 2029.

Friends and allies of her main rival, Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick, are reported to be privately collecting “letters of no confidence” in Ms Badenoch from Tory MPs. With enough support they could perhaps stage a coup, install Mr Jenrick without too much fuss, and return to a more competent Conservative leadership.

Mr Jenrick is popular within the party but there are other rivals waiting for Ms Badenoch to fail, and they may take advantage if Mr Jenrick is blamed for plotting against her. Back in the 1950s, a Conservative grandee, David Maxwell Fyfe, claimed that “loyalty is the Tory party’s secret weapon”. That seems a very long time ago.

Those were the days when the party had almost three million members. Fifty years later, in 2001, there were only 328,000 members eligible to vote for the party leader. By last year, the year Ms Badenoch became leader, 200,000 members had disappeared and only 132,000 were left as eligible to vote for the leader. Such was the lack of interest that only 95,000 actually did vote. That means in a country of about 69 million people, Ms Badenoch was elected leader with just 53,000 supporters, fewer than the usual crowd at a Manchester United football match.

The hard truth is that in the 21st century, the Conservative party has few politicians of obvious star quality and few original thinkers. The days of the Big Beasts – Margaret Thatcher, William Hague, Willie Whitelaw and Michael Heseltine – are long gone. As prime minister and Conservative leader, Boris Johnson proved an entertainment but also an embarrassment. Theresa May and Rishi Sunak were decent but dull.

Liz Truss was a disaster lasting just 49 days as prime minister. The only other really short-term prime minister in British history was George Canning, in the 1820s. He lasted just 119 days in Downing Street although, unlike Ms Truss, it wasn’t incompetence that ended his career. It was dying from pneumonia.

In 2005, the provocative journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote a book entitled The Strange Death of Tory England. Tory England has not died – or at least not yet – because the Conservatives have strong roots, a proud history and a degree of ruthlessness in achieving power. Ruthlessness may be the key to what happens next.

But getting rid of a failing leader is only part of the problem. If Ms Badenoch goes, can a party in desperate trouble find someone better to lead it?

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