Badenoch sets out her vision to redefine Tory party – but few are listening

When Kemi Badenoch was knocking on doors in her Essex constituency in the run up to the last election, she was confronted by a former Tory voter who told her: “I don’t know what the blue rosette you’re wearing means any more.” While she went on to retain her seat, Badenoch’s majority was slashed by almost 25,000 and the Conservative party as a whole suffered its worst defeat in parliamentary history. Ever since that day, her allies say, she has been thinking about how to redefine what the Conservative party stands for and turn the page after a tumultuous chapter in the party’s history, one which has left its reputation in tatters. Related: The Guardian view on Kemi Badenoch’s speech: following the path of denial, delusion and defeat | Editorial The Tory leader feels that this week, when her party gathered in Manchester for its annual conference, she has done that. Her problem is whether it will make any difference. Badenoch arrived in Manchester at the weekend amid gloomy warnings that her party – languishing at just 16% in the polls and haemorrhaging support to Reform UK – was facing oblivion. Political analysts reported that in focus groups across the country, barely anyone was able to name a single thing she had said or done since becoming leader. “The biggest risk for the Tories is that they are drifting into irrelevance,” one said. One disgruntled Tory MP has even set up a countdown clock on social media platform X of the days left until party rules allow rivals to mount a challenge. On the first anniversary of her leadership, 2 November, her critics will be able to submit letters to trigger a contest. Rivals are waiting in the wings. Foremost among them is Robert Jenrick, who has made little secret of his intentions. “He reeks of naked ambition,” says one shadow cabinet colleague. “It’s the sunk cost fallacy: he’s poured so much into it he can’t give up now.” The shadow justice secretary, who lost to Badenoch in last year’s leadership contest, packed out fringe events and the main conference hall as he expounded his Reform-lite brand of politics to the adoring Tory faithful. Related: Tories will scrap stamp duty on primary residences, Kemi Badenoch tells conference Yet he appeared to have learned the lessons of the Andy Burnham show at Labour conference in Liverpool last week, taking a marginally more subtle approach as he toured fringe events and parties, praising Badenoch’s leadership and insisting he was “right behind” her. Like Burnham, Jenrick emerged from conference a diminished figure, after his complaint about “not seeing another white face” in a part of Birmingham, revealed by the Guardian, led to accusations of toxic nationalism. Badenoch’s moment of greatest peril comes after the local elections in May, when the Tories face wipeout in Wales and Scotland, as well as in councils across England. There appears to be a consensus among her critics that trying to oust her before then would make little difference. “Kemi will survive until May at least,” one former government adviser attending the conference said. “People just aren’t interested in moving against her sooner. There is a lot of apathy.” At a fringe event on Sunday, polling guru Sir John Curtice questioned the wisdom of the Tories’ endless focus on migration: “The question I would pose to you is, does it necessarily make sense to try to out-Reform Reform?” But within 24 hours the conference had pivoted to the economy, which polls suggest is the party’s strongest card in a weak hand. “We had to tackle issues like the ECHR [European convention on human rights] early on, to give us the space to talk about what we wanted to,” one shadow cabinet minister said. Senior Tories believe they can beat Reform on the economy, and that Nigel Farage’s pitch to the left on issues such as welfare and state aid are his achilles heel. “Reform want to get back to the days of nationalisation and state control. They are marching to the left. Be in no doubt. They are the party of more spending and more debt,” shadow chancellor Mel Stride told delegates. Some Tories are sceptical the strategy will be effective, as voters won’t buy the Reform leader is anything other than a Thatcherite. They also fear the party has a long way to go to restore its reputation for fiscal prudence after the damage done by Liz Truss’s mini-budget. In the conference bars, MPs and members openly debated whether the party had done enough to express contrition for the chaos unleashed on the country in the final years of the Tories’ time in power. Badenoch opened the conference on Sunday with a speech that acknowledged they had lost the trust and confidence of the public. “This week we will set out how we have changed, how we will be different – and, most importantly, how we will make a difference,” she said. Her allies talked about the “tone of humility” which she wanted to convey – a significant pivot given her reputation for spikiness. “We have to show how we have changed and learned,” a senior MP added. In sharp contrast to Labour’s conference in Liverpool, where every politician had a stark warning about the threat of Reform UK, the party barely got a mention in Manchester, despite – and possibly because of – the existential threat it poses to the Conservatives. Related: A British Ice and more stop and search: Badenoch’s Tories set out new policies With the party now trailing Reform by about 10 points in the polls, YouGov research released on Tuesday found that 64% of Tory members want a pact with Farage’s party, and 46% support a full merger. Badenoch is not among them. But while Reform tried its best to make hay – releasing a drip drip of 20 councillor defectors over the course of one day – the Tory leader was determined to ignore them. In one oblique reference in her closing speech on Wednesday, she appeared to encourage her party not to engage with Farage. “As George Bernard Shaw said: ‘Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.’” The absence of crowd-drawing Tory big beasts such as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg – who attended Reform UK’s conference in September but skipped the Conservative one – was palpable. Overall attendance at the conference was down a third on last year, when the leadership contest attracted more members, according to party sources. The Tories had to give away business tickets for free for the first time. A security guard working at the entrance to the convention centre joked with journalists on Sunday: “It’s so quiet in there, I’ve been to busier dinner parties.” Fringe events were sparsely attended and most shadow cabinet ministers found themselves addressing a half-empty hall. There was no sense of buzz or excitement around any senior politician, other than a dutiful following for Badenoch herself. “We’ll take that,” one shadow cabinet minister said when asked at the end of the gathering about the downbeat mood. “Kemi has done what she needed to and it will have bought her some time. It could have turned out very differently.” More experienced Tory politicians urged their colleagues to maintain their newly found restraint. “The shadow of recent Conservative governments may be too big for Kemi Badenoch to escape. But this conference suggests that the best course Tory MPs can take is to let her get on with the job,” Tory peer Paul Goodman said. A shadow cabinet minister added: “We need to keep calm and carry on because what’s the alternative? If Kemi goes it means things are even worse than they are now, and anybody who takes over will be carrying an unexploded bomb.” “You can tell people not to touch the iron but some won’t listen. You might have thought ending up with just 121 MPs had burnt them enough, but maybe they need to hold the iron tight to actually learn.” But Tory MPs, who have become addicted to regicide in recent years, do not appear to be in any mood to heed the advice. Badenoch’s team is aware of a 14-strong WhatsApp group of Tory MPs who are determined to oust her. “She wasted her first year and has had virtually no cut through with the public,” one critical MP told the Guardian. “If we stick with her it’s game over and we’ll be facilitating not just the end of the Tory party, but Nigel Farage in Downing Street.”