BIRMINGHAM, England — Britain’s Conservatives don’t get many opportunities to feel upbeat these days — but Kemi Badenoch is heading into party conference with a modest spring in her step. The Tory leader — who in 2024 took over an outfit near-obliterated by its worst general election result in history — can point to disarray in her chief rival’s ranks, decent personal ratings and some clear dividing lines with Labour as just a few reasons to be cheerful. Yet it’s still a massive road back for the once-dominant center-right party.
Let POLITICO give you the view from Tory land as the West Midlands gathering gets going in earnest. The British public’s view of the Tory leader has improved sharply since she took over. YouGov polling last month found 32% of voters now have a favorable view of Badenoch, compared to 47% who view her unfavorably.
It’s hardly stirring stuff, but that net rating — of minus 15 — is 20 points higher than a year ago. And that is beginning to vindicate some party strategists’ belief that the more the public sees of Badenoch, the more it likes her. Badenoch also has no serious internal competitor trying to remove her, following Robert Jenrick’s defection to right-wing populist Reform UK earlier this year.
Jenrick narrowly lost the Tory leadership race to Badenoch in 2024, and was widely seen as hankering for her job before his abrupt departure to Nigel Farage’s army. The Conservatives’ main competitors on the right, Reform UK, enjoyed stellar results at May’s local elections, and there was serious talk of them eclipsing the Tories as the U.K.’s real opposition. Since then, however, Farage has faced months of scrutiny about his party’s finances, and spent the summer campaigning in a self-imposed by-election entirely focused on his own position.
But, says Pedley: “If you’re a voter on the right of politics in Britain, maybe as you become less impressed by Nigel Farage, you’re also looking to Kemi Badenoch, hoping that she can be the answer.” Farage was widely criticized for failing to declare a £5 million gift he received from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne in the 12 months before he became an MP, while there’s been a fresh flood of cash to Reform UK in recent months. In an eve-of-conference interview with the Tory-supporting Spectator magazine, Badenoch claimed the megabucks donations have “encouraged quite a few people to give us a bit more” to stay on the field. Badenoch revamped her Shadow Cabinet at the tail-end of the summer recess in a bid to take the fight to Labour under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Mel Stride, who fought the 2024 leadership contest and was a staunch loyalist to ex-PM Rishi Sunak, was replaced as shadow chancellor by Andrew Griffith. Griffith spent decades in business before working for Boris Johnson, and though Labour has leapt on his time as Treasury minister during former Prime Minister Liz Truss’ budget meltdown, the Tories believe his private sector experience adds real heft. Priti Patel — a Boris Johnson-era Cabinet big-hitter — was moved out of her role as shadow foreign secretary, in favor of the well-respected Tom Tugendhat, an ex-security minister who also chaired the Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
