The Conservative Party Leadership Question is Futile Without Policy Direction
23/06/25
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BADENOCH DURING PRIME MINISTER'S QUESTIONS, IMAGE: HOUSE OF COMMONS
The obliteration of the Conservative Party at last month’s local elections was both incomprehensible and unacceptable. Worryingly, Britain’s oldest and most successful political party is now fighting for its very survival, and rightfully, questions are being pointed at the feeble leadership of Kemi Badenoch. To add to her diminishing authority as Conservative Party leader, Robert Jenrick has already started laying the foundations for a second run at the Conservative Party leadership, his ambitions of leading the Party into the next election evidently as great as ever.
We in the Conservative Party were braced for a difficult set of local elections, but the outcome was even more disastrous than our worst fears. According to the BBC’s projected national vote share, the Conservatives slipped to being the 4th Party with 15% of the vote, half of what Reform polled. Only one result is comparable to this in my lifetime, the 2019 European Parliament Elections, when the Tories polled a mere 8.8% of the vote during the dying days of the May government and amidst the chaos of Brexit deadlock.
The impact of these results has shocked the Conservative Party to its very core and has put increased pressure on Kemi Badenoch’s position as leader. My personal belief is that despite these results, Badenoch’s democratic mandate from the Conservative Party in last autumn’s leadership contest is recent enough that the Party should not yet force a move against its leader, but the clock has begun for Badenoch to prove she is capable of making electoral progress at the next election, or the party must act.
The Party must not act hastily; it must be methodical and rational. We must learn from our mistakes in the past, of changing personnel without a plan for what to do after – the consequence of that in the past was Liz Truss. The Conservative Party instead needs direction and to focus on the bread-and-butter issues people care about, such as the economy, where Labour is underperforming, and immigration. We have to prove to people that we are in touch with the issues they care about and that affect their day-to-day lives, as opposed to focusing our efforts on niche issues that do not resonate with the public, such as the mobile phones in school ban, which is getting us nowhere.
I believe that Badenoch has only another 12-18 months and another set of elections to prove herself, or she will not be the leader who takes the Conservative Party into the 2029 General Election. At the top of my advice to her is to focus on core policies that unite the Party – for example pledging to reverse Labour’s so-called ‘Jobs Tax’, I would also advise Badenoch to stay out of needless fights, such as the bizarre confrontation she had with sandwich eaters, and to try and connect with the electorate on a more personal level as at the moment. She is this generation’s equivalent of Iain Duncan Smith – deeply uninspiring, ineffective, often too tribal, and above all unable to cut through despite the unpopularity of the Labour government just ten months into office.
To continue the comparisons to 2003, I believe the writing is on the wall, and the Party will force her from office sooner or later, my prediction being by the end of 2026. Much like in 2003, I believe the leadership process will be conducted internally instead of through a vote of members. At present, I only see one leadership candidate prevailing - Robert Jenrick.
JENRICK WELCOMES DAVID ATTENBROUGH TO THE TREASURY, IMAGE: HM TREASURY
Jenrick, who Badenoch appointed Shadow Justice Secretary after defeating him in the 2024 leadership contest, has been one of the most outspoken figures in the Party over recent years, and many have questioned the nature of his loyalty to Kemi Badenoch. He has appeared to break ranks from the Party line on several occasions, and many believe he has already launched his second leadership campaign, albeit undeclared, in plain sight. Speculation has only grown around Jenrick’s intentions over recent weeks and months, following a secret recording of comments he made to students regarding a potential “coalition” or pact between the Conservative Party and high-flying Reform UK, which were at odds to the line set out by Badenoch that there will be no coalitions at national level with Farage’s party.
These leaked comments follow months of frequent social media content that Jenrick has put himself front and centre of, with some starting to speculate that these videos resemble campaign videos, and that Jenrick may be trying to build his base for a future leadership bid through them. In my view, this social media content is the foundation block for a second Jenrick leadership bid – either one he will force, or one that will materialise regardless.
It is worth noting that since these comments were leaked, he has publicly reiterated the Party line that he is committed to seeing off Reform UK, and following the local elections onslaught, he publicly defended Kemi Badenoch, stating she had an “extremely challenging” set of circumstances in leading the Conservative Party. However, many are unconvinced by these defences of Badenoch and that he is merely binding his time for his opportunity to try again in his quest to become party leader.
Further speculation grew in the last week of May when it was reported that Jenrick had personally met with exiled Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe for lunch at a private members club in Mayfair to discuss Lowe potentially joining the Conservative Party, a proposition Lowe is said to be “open” to. This bargaining from Jenrick is not something a shadow minister often does, and should be doing unless authorised by the leadership; it should be the leadership and Party officials, such as the Chairman, who offer the olive branch to potential defectors.
However, if Jenrick does have any burning leadership ambitions, he may have to move quicker, as the strong performance of Reform, further backed up by the opinion polls, could trigger mass defections of the right of the Party at the grassroots levels, where much of Jenrick’s base would come from. But what do moderates think of a potential Jenrick leadership?
JAMES CLEVERLY, THE LEADING MODERATE CANDIDATE FOR LEADERSHIP, IMAGE: UK HOME OFFICE
The Party would be performing better under Jenrick, as I believe he would be more serious about addressing the problems the Conservative Party faces to regain competitiveness, and I believe he actually wants to be prime minister, whereas I do not see the same desire from Badenoch. Jenrick would also go down better in the Red Wall with his charisma, and simply because he actually believes in something, which is a criticism that has been aimed at Badenoch - people do not know what she truly stands for.
I believe that Jenrick would do better in a fight with Reform, as I believe that the Red Wall did not turn its back on the Conservative Party, rather the Party turned its back on them with several unfulfilled promises, such as on net migration levels, and now it has turned elsewhere for answers. This can be evidenced, even in the local elections, where now the Conservative Party holds more seats in Nottinghamshire (17) than in Devon and Kent combined (12), showing Badenoch’s consolidation strategy, assuming there is a strategy, has been ineffective and needs to be reassessed. However, I still hold many concerns about a Jenrick leadership.
Jenrick, like Badenoch, has never been far away from controversy. During his time as Housing Secretary, he was twice put under the spotlight for travelling during the first Covid lockdown, one of which was an unnecessary 150-mile trip to a second home. And if not his personal decisions, his hardline rhetoric often hits the headlines, at a time when the Conservative Party needs an articulate and pragmatic voice that reconnects with the electorate that we lost not only to Reform, but to the Liberal Democrats, Labour and even the Greens in some rural seats.
With this in mind, my preferred candidate for any hypothetical leadership contest would be Tom Tugendhat. I believe the leading moderate candidate, James Cleverly, is too much of a flip-flopper. A clear example of this is the Rwanda policy. In government as the minister responsible for the policy, he reportedly called it “batshit”, but in the leadership contest last year said he would bring the policy back as a deterrent. However, some question whether Tugendhat, despite his very principled nature (that would go down well with voters), would have the charisma to cut through at such a time of political volatility. I would gently point to his poignant speech following the collapse of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, to provide evidence to the contrary.
As the Party demographic tends to be more right-leaning at this time, I believe Priti Patel could be a good ‘unity candidate’. Widely popular on the right of the Party, in recent years, I believe she has mellowed. Indeed, in the opening days of the Labour government, she offered her expertise from her time as Home Secretary to work alongside successor Yvette Cooper and Jess Phillips on their strategy to reduce violence against women and girls. This is an often unspoken pragmatic side to Priti Patel that is often overshadowed by an unfair media portrayal.
However, with all this discussion of the leadership question, it is important to note that it is futile without policy direction. We need to re-establish who we are and what we stand for, and try to unite behind a set of policies that show the electorate - we heard their message in the last election, and we are addressing their concerns.
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