Kemi Badenoch really doesn't want a pact with Nigel Farage. The problem is lots of Tories really do
Kemi Badenoch may only be four months into her leadership, but already Westminster is talking about her successor. Nigel Farage declared over the weekend that the Conservative party leader would be 'lucky to survive past June'. Of course, he would say that. The Reform UK leader has a personal interest in Tory misfortune. But more concerning for Badenoch is that some in her own party are starting to ask if she'll still be leader at the next election.
Her problems are piling up. The Tories regularly come third in national polls behind Reform and Labour. There is little money to go around (despite a spurt in Tory donations late last year) and redundancies at Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ) are seen as inevitable. Badenoch's performances at prime minister's questions are regularly criticised among Tory MPs for being too scatter-gun and missing open goals. The May local elections will be the first electoral test of her leadership – and CCHQ sources are attempting some serious expectation management as they warn of losses.
But perhaps worst of all for Badenoch, there are simply plenty of figures on the right who never wanted her to be party leader and have even less time for her now. Alongside Farage, rarely a week passes without Dominic Cummings – the former leave campaign supremo – taking to social media or his Substack to criticise Badenoch, recently suggesting 'it's better for the country when she's playing iPad games all day than playing 'policy'.' The fact Cummings met Farage for dinner a few months ago has spurred excited chatter that a rightwing coup could soon be under way to push Badenoch aside. Her critics are a mix of those who find her too abrasive and those who think her shadow cabinet is too one-nation and lacks the bite to take on Reform.
However, this talk has not yet caught on too widely within the party. 'I don't think she is doing that well but she's not going anywhere at the moment,' says a former cabinet minister. Others point to her performance last week – in which she announced net zero was 'impossible' by 2050 and launched a series of policy commissions – as evidence that things are improving. While Badenoch has been accused by the former Tory MP Chris Skidmore of going back on a pledge she made to a group of MPs in 2022 to back the net zero target, many of the current intake welcome the move as a way of taking the fight to Reform. 'Her position is much stronger than a few weeks ago,' says a member of the shadow cabinet. Even the Badenoch critics are keen to downplay talk of her imminent exit. 'Angela Rayner has saved Kemi,' says one Conservative source, pointing to the limited number of local council elections after local government changes. 'The most difficult votes have been postponed so May won't be the crunch point.'
Yet while the Tory mood is far from regicidal, there are long-term questions being asked about Badenoch's leadership. 'There are things she should do to increase her survivability,' says one Tory MP. 'Net zero was one good thing in a desert of five months – and she needs the self-awareness to understand that and then the ability to respond.'
But the first step is perhaps understanding the forces that will be working against her. As well as the odd explosion from Cummings or Farage, Badenoch has to contend with the likely launch of a campaign group in the next few weeks that will argue for an electoral pact between Reform and the Tories. For now, the campaign is loosely referred to as 'unite the right'. However, a different official title is expected – to be revealed at the launch.
On paper, a mix of supporters of Reform and the Conservatives pointing at the polling and making the point that there could be an argument for the two parties working together isn't that sinister. However, the reason this poses a threat to Badenoch is that she has come out firmly against a pact and there is no love lost between her and Farage. 'If we have to work with Nigel – and the current polls suggest the Reform vote is too sticky to not – you can't have Kemi as leader,' says a former government adviser. They argue that Badenoch's leadership style is too abrasive, even if she did change tack.
It's here that a game of fantasy leader tends to happen. Names being floated as Reform-friendly Tory leaders include Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick. Jenrick – who lost to Badenoch in the leadership contest – is these days seen as the most likely successor were Badenoch to go. While the shadow justice secretary has his critics – particularly among Badenoch loyalists – he is slowly but surely winning round some through his hard work. He is far and away the shadow minister making the biggest impact when it comes to social media, policy work and setting the news agenda.
'Some of the shadow cabinet are jealous of Rob [Jenrick] as he keeps making news but he is also working a lot harder,' argues a Tory MP. A Jenrick ally adds: 'Rob is willing to work all hours unlike some – and it shows.' Others pine for Boris Johnson – but for now this is yet to be a real movement. 'It's the same people as before talking up Boris and they will say, 'Oh, he stopped Farage,'' says one Tory MP. 'He also oversaw increased legal migration.'
It's why, for now, Badenoch's inner-circle plan to ignore the noise and focus on showing MPs they have a plan through their actions. 'It's the same people mouthing off. They're like the Japanese soldiers who didn't know the second world war had ended and were trying to keep it going,' says a Badenoch ally. Instead, Badenoch hopes that the cracks appearing in the Reform party since Rupert Lowe's exit mean most of the drama will be coming from the other side.
Yet there are small signs that the Tory leader recognises she will need all the friends she can get in the long term: she has recently started lunches with MPs after prime minister's questions. Given Badenoch takes issues with sandwiches (previously telling me they were not a real food), the food of choice is pizza. She ultimately knows that while she has breathing space for now, that will change if she can't point to progress in the coming year. If the Tories stay third in the polls, her critics won't find it too hard to win supporters for their cause.
Katy Balls is the Spectator's political editor
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
18 minutes ago
- Spectator
Will Labour actually act on the Casey grooming gang report?
Has the government really U-turned on grooming gangs? Six months after resisting a national inquiry into the crimes committed against young girls by men of predominantly Asian heritage, ministers have announced one. But Yvette Cooper's statement to MPs this afternoon about the exact nature of that inquiry suggested the government had executed something a little wobblier than a U-turn. The Home Secretary told the Commons that Louise Casey's rapid review had recommended a national commission – with statutory inquiry powers – which will direct and oversee the local inquiries into grooming gangs that are already underway. It would not be 'another overarching inquiry of the kind conducted by Professor Alexis Jay', added Cooper. 'Its purpose must be to challenge what the audit describes as continued denial, resistance and legal wrangling among local agencies.' While it would be time-limited, the Home Secretary later told Reform MP Richard Tice that it would take around three years. There will need to be quite a sustained storm to ensure that there is real change in policy Is this a full public inquiry? Not quite. And it's not quite a U-turn. But it's enough of one for ministers to claim that they are taking grooming gangs as seriously as the row at the start of the year demanded. Detailing Casey's 'disturbing' findings, Cooper said the law had Ended up protecting [perpetrators] instead of the victims that they had exploited, deep rooted institutional failures stretching back decades where organisations who should have protected children and punished offenders looked the other way. She added that 'blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good but misdirected intentions all played a part in this collective failure'. None of these findings are particularly new or surprising, other than the need for better data, particularly on ethnicity. On that, Cooper said Casey's review had found the following: In the local data that the audit examined from three police forces, they identified clear evidence of over-representation among suspects of Asian and Pakistani heritage men, and she refers to examples of organisations avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions. Given there is little that is new in what Casey highlighted, a more important question than what sort of volte-face ministers have executed is whether the new inquiry will lead to real changes. Cooper told MPs that further action was being taken to implement the recommendations of the seven-year inquiry from Jay. The recommendations from Casey included expunging the criminal records of those who had been convicted for child prostitution while their abusers walked free. The National Crime Agency will also launch a new criminal operation into grooming gangs which will develop a new operating model for police forces nationwide to ensure grooming gangs are always treated as serious and organised crime. Both Cooper and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch spent considerable portions of their respective speeches pointing out that they had been working on this for years and arguing that the party on the other side of the Chamber had done nothing. Both of them had a furious tone as they railed against the injustice of it taking so many years for too few victims to get justice. Badenoch – who would not normally, as leader of the opposition, respond to a statement from a secretary of state – also asked for details on what changed Keir Starmer's mind from 'thinking this was dog-whistle politics'. She also spent a fair chunk of time defending the Conservative record on tackling the sexual exploitation of children – something Cooper then used the report to try to repudiate. Cooper and Badenoch also fought over whether Labour MPs had really voted against a national inquiry at the start of the year, as Badenoch claimed, or whether they were rejecting a Tory attempt to wreck the Children and Wellbeing Bill at second reading. MPs representing areas where grooming gangs have already been uncovered, such as Paul Waugh in Rochdale, were not happy with Badenoch's characterisation of their voting records. Waugh complained early on in the backbench responses that he felt a 'cold fury' while listening to the Leader of the Opposition. That cold fury is presumably fuelled in part by the local opprobrium whipped up against MPs over that mischaracterisation of how they voted. Indeed, it was a national storm of opprobrium over a mischaracterisation that led to grooming gangs going from just one of many issues to being the dominant political story at the start of the year. Without that storm, it is unlikely Casey would have been given the audit or that there would be a national inquiry. Given the poor record of all governments in following up the findings of all kinds of inquiries, there will need to be quite a sustained storm to ensure that there is real change in policy, not just a different sort of announcement to the one ministers intended to make when this row first surfaced earlier in the year.
The Herald Scotland
36 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Primary school pupils using screens for tests is ‘normalising' use, Tories claim
Ms Trott said the policy was supported by teachers, health professionals and parents. She said: 'Every day we have new evidence of the harm screens are doing. So why is the Education Secretary (Bridget Phillipson) ignoring this, and still pressing ahead with screen-based assessments for children as young as four from September? 'Does she accept that this is normalising screen time for young people, which is the opposite of what we should be doing?' Education minister Stephen Morgan said: 'Is this all she can go on? Frankly, after 14 years, they broke the education system. As I said, there's guidance already in place for schools, the majority of schools already have a ban in place on mobile phone use.' Earlier in the Commons, Mr Morgan had told MPs mobile phones had 'no place' in schools. He said Government guidance said schools should ban the use of smartphones during the school day. However ,he said it was up to schools to use their powers to take them off pupils. Shadow education secretary Laura Trott claimed the Government was normalising screen time for young children (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Conservative MPs raised the links between mobile phone usage and violent behaviour, as well as schools with bans having better grades on average. Conservative MP Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) said: 'Schools with smartphone bans were rated higher by Ofsted, and their students achieved better GCSE results. So all the evidence shows the benefit of banning smartphones in schools. 'But the Government is simply issuing non-statutory guidance and passing the buck. So does the minister not understand the evidence, need more evidence, or do you not trust the Government to be able to implement a ban on smartphones in schools?' Meanwhile, John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) said: 'Mobile phones in classrooms are linked to disruptive and violent behaviour. So does the minister agree with me that mobile phones should be banned in all schools, so the children are focused on their education and not glued to Instagram and TikTok?' While in government, the then Conservative education secretary, Gillian Keegan, sent guidance to schools that told headteachers they could ban mobile phones during the school day. However, this was short of an out-and-out ban. Since their election defeat last year, the Conservatives have pushed for Labour to introduce a full ban. In March, it tried to amend Labour's flagship education policy to legally prohibit smartphone usage. A Government spokesperson said the existing guidance meant about 97% of schools restrict mobile phone use in some way. Studies are unclear on the impact of a smartphone ban. One by the University of Birmingham, published in the Lancet earlier this year, suggested there was no link. Replying to Ms Bool, Mr Morgan said: 'I'll take no lectures from the benches opposite on this. When in government, they exclaimed the same guidance meant a consistent approach across all schools. So you have to ask, were they wrong then, are they wrong now?'
Rhyl Journal
an hour ago
- Rhyl Journal
Primary school pupils using screens for tests is ‘normalising' use, Tories claim
Shadow education secretary Laura Trott said the Government was instilling screen usage for children as young as four, as the Government came under pressure to ban smartphones in schools. Ms Trott said the policy was supported by teachers, health professionals and parents. She said: 'Every day we have new evidence of the harm screens are doing. So why is the Education Secretary (Bridget Phillipson) ignoring this, and still pressing ahead with screen-based assessments for children as young as four from September? 'Does she accept that this is normalising screen time for young people, which is the opposite of what we should be doing?' Education minister Stephen Morgan said: 'Is this all she can go on? Frankly, after 14 years, they broke the education system. As I said, there's guidance already in place for schools, the majority of schools already have a ban in place on mobile phone use.' Earlier in the Commons, Mr Morgan had told MPs mobile phones had 'no place' in schools. He said Government guidance said schools should ban the use of smartphones during the school day. However ,he said it was up to schools to use their powers to take them off pupils. Conservative MPs raised the links between mobile phone usage and violent behaviour, as well as schools with bans having better grades on average. Conservative MP Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) said: 'Schools with smartphone bans were rated higher by Ofsted, and their students achieved better GCSE results. So all the evidence shows the benefit of banning smartphones in schools. 'But the Government is simply issuing non-statutory guidance and passing the buck. So does the minister not understand the evidence, need more evidence, or do you not trust the Government to be able to implement a ban on smartphones in schools?' Meanwhile, John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) said: 'Mobile phones in classrooms are linked to disruptive and violent behaviour. So does the minister agree with me that mobile phones should be banned in all schools, so the children are focused on their education and not glued to Instagram and TikTok?' While in government, the then Conservative education secretary, Gillian Keegan, sent guidance to schools that told headteachers they could ban mobile phones during the school day. However, this was short of an out-and-out ban. Since their election defeat last year, the Conservatives have pushed for Labour to introduce a full ban. In March, it tried to amend Labour's flagship education policy to legally prohibit smartphone usage. A Government spokesperson said the existing guidance meant about 97% of schools restrict mobile phone use in some way. Studies are unclear on the impact of a smartphone ban. One by the University of Birmingham, published in the Lancet earlier this year, suggested there was no link. Replying to Ms Bool, Mr Morgan said: 'I'll take no lectures from the benches opposite on this. When in government, they exclaimed the same guidance meant a consistent approach across all schools. So you have to ask, were they wrong then, are they wrong now?'
