The big question for the Conservatives in 2025: do they stick with their leader? Or, if you’re of a more certain and less charitable persuasion, how long do they stick with their leader?
You might have missed it in amid the non-stop travails of the Labour government, but Kemi Badenoch is not doing well. Week after week at PMQs, Badenoch is presented with open goals (and fails to score). For all the delusional optimism at the Conservative Party Conference in October as Labour slumped in the polls, the Tories are not benefiting from Keir Starmer’s plummeting popularity. It is Nigel Farage’s Reform party that seems to be capitalising on disillusionment with mainstream politics, with the three parties now wallowing around the mid-20s in terms of public support.
How long will the Tories put up with this? The first big flashpoint for a new party leader is usually the May local elections. The council seats scheduled for election in 2025 were last fought in 2021 at the height of Boris Johnson’s vaccine bounce, before the Conservatives’ record on Covid became a liability. The party did unexpectedly well back then, setting the scene for a disappointing showing this time around. So the first thing to look out for is a furious drive for the Tories to set expectations.
As dissatisfaction with Labour is growing by the day, Reform will be looking to prove they are a serious party that can convert popularity in a poll to actual gains. A strong Reform performance in May will stoke doubts that Badenoch is the right person see off the Farage threat and challenge Starmer. Runner-up Robert Jenrick, whose big pitch during the contest was do go hard on immigration, is still positioning himself a leadership contender should Badenoch show any signs of faltering (even if for the moment he serves as her shadow justice secretary). He’ll be waiting for an opportunity to pounce.
All of this is complicated by Labour’s devolution plans, which could see many of the local council elections scheduled for May postponed. It would be ironic if Badenoch were able to cling on as leader thanks to Starmer delaying her first major test.
But she still has big things to answer as leader, all under the umbrella of a simple question: what is the Tory party for? Already there are grumblings about the Tories’ lack of direction, her difficulty in setting the media narrative that has allowed Farage to swoop into the gap and the apparent complete lack of interest in appealing to voters the Conservatives lost to the Liberal Democrats.
Badenoch refused to outline policy during the leadership contest, calling instead for a period of soul-searching to work out what the Conservatives stand for these days. This has left a vacuum during her first two months as leader, with the Tories reduced to knee-jerk opposition of whatever Labour is doing, without offering ideas of their own. We know Badenoch opposes VAT on private schools and the changes to inheritance tax for farms, but not how she would fund the budget shortfall of reversing those policies – only instead that she dislikes sandwiches. Nor has she found a way to detoxify the record of the governments she was herself a part of. She has no answers on the dilemma threatening to the tear the Tories apart: how to talk about the “Boriswave” of net migration (now with its own Wikipedia page) when the former Prime Minister remains the party’s flagship electoral success story. Meanwhile, if Badenoch doesn’t want to go down the Jenrick route of trying to out-Farage Farage, she needs to offer something else to rebuild the Tories’ credibility on immigration.
None of this is easy. Just as Labour has faced teething troubles – as anyone who has raised a baby it will tell you, teething is relentless, all-consuming and soul-destroying but does slowly get better – with the sudden jolt into government, so the Conservatives need time to get used to opposition. It was always naive to assume voters would immediately forget their fury with the Tories after a taste of Labour, and any new leader who had served in the governments of the last few Conservative prime ministers would struggle to distance themselves from this lacklustre legacy. The Tories have the advantage right now that Labour is falling in popularity all by itself. Badenoch has a chance to focus inwards and “fix the foundations” of the party, to borrow a phrase. And there are benefits to taking the time to make sure opposition policies are cohesive rather than scattergun and can be implemented if the party ever makes it back in government. (Just ask Labour about Waspi compensation.)
But Badenoch has to at least start coming up with answers on some of the above, or her party will lose patience. If not by May, the by the Conservative Party Conference in October for sure.
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