Breaking Badenoch: Why Kemi’s position is already precarious
Kemi Badenoch has won the Conservative leadership with a policy-light campaign, but if she’s really committed to radical change as she says, she won’t be able to appease all wings of the party for long, says William Atkinson
The greatest Tory defeat came not on 4 July this year, but on 24 December 1688. That was the day upon which James II – the last Roman Catholic King of England – left his country, never to return, forced out by querulous Bishops, intolerant Whigs, and a dour Dutch usurper.Â
Today’s Conservatives – the distant heirs of James’s Tory supporters – have long since reluctantly reconciled themselves to the Glorious Revolution and the House of Windsor. But I raise James’s standard only to remind readers my party has long had a penchant for Kings across the water.
Hardly the most auspicious note on which to welcome Kemi Badenoch’s election. Yet one cannot ignore that her eight predecessors since John Major have lasted, on average, 1251 days. That figure is a little skewed by David Cameron having managed over a decade, and Liz Truss having been the 49 days Queen. But still: three and a half years is not very long.Â
Since it does not have to be held until 2029, if Badenoch matched the average tenure, she would not even be in place to face off against Keir Starmer at the next election. The fundamental question underlying her leadership, long before any manifesto can be written, is this: how does she stay in place?Â
She has two criteria to satisfy. The first is beating Labour in the polls. Rishi Sunak has very kindly gifted his successor the first Conservative lead since December 2021. Against a government as abysmal as this one, that is not surprising. Labour were elected with no enthusiasm in July. They have spaffed any goodwill on prisoner releases, free glasses, and tax hikes. Plenty of material for Badenoch.Â
Yet as William Hague proved, a few good performances at PMQs do not overhaul a Labour landslide on their own. Nor do they necessarily appease Tory MPs eager to get back into government, or who have been bruised by a long contest.
Grand talk will eventually have to turn into a manifesto
Badenoch won support from across the party by running a policy-lite campaign. Her grand talk of basic principles will eventually have to become a manifesto. She will be unable to appease all wings of Tory opinion, especially if she is genuinely committed to the radical change she so often hails.
By the time he was forced out by a confidence vote in 2003, Iain Duncan Smith had pulled the Tories level with Labour. Yet his position was weak from the start, having won the party membership but only the support of a third of MPs. Badenoch is in a similar position. She must bind to herself those who did not back her. She is helped by Robert Jenrick’s willingness to serve in her Shadow Cabinet.
A plum job for him and his key supporters – such as one-man think tank Neil O’Brien – would be judicious. James Cleverly’s choice to return to the backbenches will worry her. He is well-placed as a unity candidate if she stumbles. Kemi Badenoch should support any putative London Mayoralty bid of his, to get him out of Parliament. Â
She would also be mad to support any return by Boris Johnson or Penny Mordaunt via a by-election, since neither would be content to serve under her forever. But the most obvious King across the water – or at least the backbenches – is a figure just as familiar: Rishi Sunak. Since July’s election defeat, his stock has only risen. A recent poll suggested voters regretted turfing his government out for Starmer’s.
He showed his finest qualities in his Budget response last week: eloquence, a head for figures, and a righteous anger at Labour having flagrantly misled voters. He is the only Conservative that all current Tory MPs agree is up to being Prime Minister. He will wish Badenoch every success. But if stays in parliament as her colleagues become jittery, a Sunak restoration is not impossible.Â
William Atkinson is assistant editor at Conservativehome