The Tories must face the grim reality of their situation

Yahoo

11-04-2025

Kemi Badenoch's pragmatic approach to dealing with Reform councillors after next month's local elections will no doubt be pounced upon by her opponents, both within and outside her own party.
Reform represents the worst nightmares of many on the 'progressive' Left – an anti-immigrant, anti-EU party that only those on the 'far-Right' could ever support. Except if that's the case, then a quarter of the electorate should be classed as 'far-Right'.
However flawed such a political analysis is, Reform presents a genuine danger to all the main parties. Here is a political vehicle with policies that few could recite and a leader who is as divisive as any in recent decades.
Yet its attractiveness to voters seems unaffected by such calculations, which must infuriate the party strategists at Labour and Conservative headquarters.
Since before last year's general election, there has been much speculation and comment as to how the Tories in particular should address the problem of Reform: it is the obvious party to which discontented activists, voters and even elected members are drawn if they are unhappy with the record of the last Conservative administration (its attraction to former Labour voters is no less powerful, but that's a story for another day).
Yet even discussing the possibility of an informal working arrangement with Reform at a local level – let alone entertaining the idea of a formal merger, as some have suggested – is seen as electoral toxicity for Badenoch and her party.
But she went ahead and did it anyway. Aware of the trap set for her by BBC Breakfast (and after they had exhausted their obsession with asking her why she has not yet watched 'Adolescence', a Netflix crime drama), the Tory leader was careful to reject any formal pact with Nigel Farage's party.
'When someone says they want to destroy you,' she said, 'you don't invite them into your house and ask to do a deal. But at the local level… we end up with various coalitions. I have seen Conservatives go into coalition with Labour, with Liberal Democrats, with independents.
Few could claim that this is a remotely controversial approach. It is pragmatic and sensible, even if it went too far for some of her members and not far enough for others. Such is the Conservative Party in 2025.
In one vital respect, Badenoch had little choice about how she responded to the question. The Tories, Labour and the Conservatives are all bubbling around the same level in the opinion polls with none of them opening up any kind of lead.
This is appalling news for the two main parties – rarely has either of them plunged to such depths of public opinion – and excellent for Farage.
But it is Badenoch who is under the greatest pressure at these elections, and who has to expend more energy in seeking to preserve her party as a functional opposition.
Given the rise in support for Reform since last year, she needs to reassure both defectors from her cause and those who are remaining loyal that a vote for the Conservatives need not mean a rejection of Reform or what it stands for.
If she had rejected out of hand any form of post-polling day co-operation, she would have risked an even higher level of defections by frustrated supporters.
This way, she keeps alive the prospect that whatever the motives of those who vote Tory in May, her party remains a viable option for those with a grievance against the way the country is being governed.
As for the principle of working with a 'far-Right' party to help deliver local services, it will be necessary, if this tactic is going to work, for Badenoch to do Farage's work for him and redefine or reject the term.
If she were to acknowledge that Reform is indeed far-Right, she would become vulnerable to the obvious charges from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
So she needs to maintain a distance between her party and Reform, while painting her opponents as mainstream enough to qualify for coalition deals in town halls across the country.
This should not prove impossible: there are plenty in the Labour Party who claim the Tories themselves (and in fact anyone to the Right of Ed Miliband) are far-Right, but that hasn't prevented the two parties working together when electoral arithmetic demands it.
Badenoch needs to prove that Reform's presence on the ballot paper and in the House of Commons – and, presumably, in significantly increased numbers in local authorities from next month – does not threaten her party's role as the official opposition.
Hers is a risky strategy that may well go wrong before long. The Tories' coalition is more fragile and combustible than it has ever been, and she has still not convinced everyone in her party that she has the vision and the mettle to lead it.
Acknowledging the realities that will be forced upon her local councillors after the elections was a step in the right direction, and will give her some breathing space.
It's after the elections that the pressure will really build, depending on how well the Conservatives, Labour and Reform actually do on polling day.
Badenoch is far from out of the woods yet. But she has shown a sure touch and played the hand she was dealt with confidence. The next hand in the game will be dealt by the voters themselves.
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