Kemi Badenoch has closed the Conservatives’ annual conference in Birmingham bathed in applause from a supportive party and declaring optimistically: “We are going to win.”
The Tory leader and her party are still a very long way from power, as her allies privately admit, but they believe this conference is a launchpad for a political recovery. So what have we learnt?
It’s the economy, stupid
Badenoch deliberately put the economy at the heart of her pitch to the country at her party conference in Birmingham, with a specific appeal to homeowners — the party’s traditional electoral bedrock.
The Tory leader described Prime Minister Andy Burnham as a “reckless” believer in a big state, spending money the country did not have. “We are running out of money and running out of time to put it right,” she said.
Badenoch’s focus on the economy delighted many senior Tories, who have been urging her to drop “culture war” issues and to stick to the party’s core message of lower taxes, lower welfare spending and strong defence.
Her promise this week to scrap Labour’s “mansion tax” and to ditch inheritance tax on a family home passed to direct descendants completes a suite of policies aimed at homeowners. Last year, she vowed to abolish stamp duty on house purchases.
Badenoch said Burnham was nostalgic for the 1970s and believed in the state as the answer to most problems. “Just because these ideas are delivered on TikTok doesn’t make them any less dangerous,” she added.
No longer chasing Farage’s tail
At last year’s Conservative conference, Badenoch appeared to be obsessed with the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and tried to go head-to-head with him on issues such as migration.
“Conference, I stand for stronger borders and a stronger economy,” Badenoch told her party last year. This year, “borders” disappeared from the official conference slogan: “Stronger Economy, Stronger Country”.
Badenoch seems to have concluded that — in the words of one Tory grandee — “you can’t out-Farage Farage”. Her speech on Wednesday contained few references to illicit migration or small boats.
Instead, she portrayed members of Farage’s party as cranky, sometimes criminal and racist.
“Character, conduct and standards matter,” she said, criticising Reform for threatening journalists, calling veterans “traitors” and debating “whether my mixed-race children are English”.
“We are not like them, we are different, we are the Conservative Party.” Addressing suggestions she would work with Farage in a coalition to unite the right, she said: “We are not uniting with that.”
Taking on the Lib Dems
If the Tories are going to regain power, they have to win back moderate voters who switched en masse at the last election to the Liberal Democrats, who won 72 seats.
Several of the tax cuts on offer at the Tory conference were aimed not at Reform voters but at people living in middle-class areas such as Surrey or Oxfordshire, including the new inheritance tax policy.
Badenoch also offered subsidised childcare to people earning more than £100,000 while shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith spoke of his “ambition” to end the 60 per cent marginal tax rate on earnings between £100,000 and £125,000.
Meanwhile, the kind of issues which often repel traditional “One Nation Tories”, for example Badenoch’s insistence that the party’s candidates cannot support the 2050 net zero target or the European Convention on Human Rights, were not mentioned in her speech.
“We cannot get back into power if we’re not winning Guildford or Esher or Tunbridge Wells,” said one shadow cabinet member.
It’s my party now
Badenoch has total control of her party, as witnessed by the euphoric reception for her speech, a major turnaround in her political fortunes. This time last year, she was under pressure and facing a possible leadership challenge from Robert Jenrick.
This year’s conference was built around Badenoch, whose poll ratings outstrip those of her party. “The party will be doing what I want to do, because it’s my Conservative Party now,” she told the FT last week.
A YouGov poll in July found 38 per cent of voters thought Badenoch was doing well as Tory leader, up 23 points from the previous October, even if her party languishes behind Labour and Reform in the polls.
As well as uniting the party around her economic message of lower taxes and a smaller state, she has softened her own personal style, introducing more humour. She appeared close to tears when she paid tribute to the recently deceased Ann Widdecombe and Jeffrey Archer.
But ultimately Badenoch will be judged on whether she can turn around a tarnished political brand. “There’s obviously a trust deficit for the party,” admitted another shadow cabinet member.
The return of the Brexit debate
Badenoch was strongly critical of the prime minister for reopening the debate about Britain’s future relationship with the EU at last week’s Labour conference, 10 years after she and many Tories voted for Brexit.
Badenoch said it was a “terrible idea” to “reopen the Brexit debate”, adding: “Can you imagine going through that again?”
She warned it would divide the UK and leave “businesses not knowing whether they should invest”.
The Conservatives made it clear that they would unravel any moves by Burnham to secure a closer deal with the EU if it involved accepting Brussels’ rules, including a proposed deal to remove trade barriers on food trade.
Labour hopes to portray the Tories as wanting to reimpose trade barriers for ideological reasons, hobbling business.
A Labour spokesman said: “British farmers and businesses, large and small, want less red tape and more certainty. The Tories are offering the exact opposite.”
Bobby J: Tory bogeyman
One person absent from this year’s Tory conference — but omnipresent — was Badenoch’s former leadership rival Jenrick, now Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson.
“Bobby J’s departure changed the whole mood,” said one shadow cabinet member, who claimed that his defection from the Conservatives had created a more collegiate atmosphere.
Badenoch joked that the shadow cabinet now actually liked each other. “I don’t think we’ve been this united since just before the 2010 election or maybe just after the 2019 election win,” said one party veteran.
Jenrick was pre-emptively sacked by Badenoch in January after she claimed she had discovered he was about to defect to Reform. The former Tory minister did exactly that and is now a fierce critic of his former party.
At the conference he was lampooned in the party’s “Birmingham Tapestry” as a miniature and tearful figure. For his part, Jenrick hit back, saying Badenoch was copying Reform’s policies.