If you think Kemi Badenoch’s Tories are finished – I’ve got bad news

Earlier this afternoon, I walked out of Kemi Badenoch’s speech at the Conservative party conference and, on its own terms, there’s no doubt it was a win, an effective, sharp, witty stabiliser – almost certainly her best yet. 

In the room, there was laughter and applause in all the right places. She received a standing ovation for supporting farmers, business owners and police officers and found a leaflet-friendly slogan in ‘responsibility today, opportunity tomorrow’ (quite how that fits with the reality that the Tories’ hard Brexit sent our economy plummeting, I don’t know.)

She also made a neat dig at Nigel Farage: ‘I am an engineer, not an arsonist’ the Tory leader proclaimed, a swipe at the Reform boss’s brand of politics that favours burning everything to the ground (and then blaming someone else) rather than building consensus or governing in the interest of the country. 

On every objective metric, this was, unfortunately for those who want her gone sooner rather than later, a lethally good speech. If you’re sharpening knives as part of Team Jenrick, I’d take a step back.

With all conferences, the real action was away from the main stage – and it is there I found plenty of evidence that this is not, despite what many think, a party in terminal decline. 

Firstly, let’s be clear about what today’s speech was – and was not. It was not a slam-dunk national pitch. 

None of the undeniable sparkle and shine of Badenoch’s newfound confidence excuses the weakest parts of today’s pitch, or indeed her last eleven months as leader.

Last September, the former Business Secretary claimed she ‘doesn’t have gaffes’ – something that hasn’t exactly stood up. In the time since she’s wrongly claimed that Northern Ireland voted Leave in 2016, bizarrely derided sandwiches while declaring lunch ‘for wimps’, and flopped at PMQs by attacking Keir Starmer for reading scripted lines… while reading that line from a script.

Her insistence on exiting the European Convention on Human Rights is a legal and diplomatic minefield – for human rights, our international standing, and peace in Northern Ireland – to which she has no convincing answers.

Her big reveal to abolish stamp duty on main homes will grab headlines, but raises the same old concerns about fiscal responsibility given her own ‘golden economic rule’ stipulates that half of money saved will go towards cutting the deficit. 

As for the facts? In a spiel about ‘Conservative achievements’, Badenoch boasted several achievements from free state education to same-sex marriage, that were, at best, tenuous. (Lib Dems Lynne Featherstone and John Leech led on the latter, often against Tory dithering.)

Still, beneath the empty conference seats and leadership psychodrama, I found a Tory operation that is re-wiring itself. After a shaky and eerily aimless start, fringes filled up, campaign rooms attracted younger organisers, and panellists were sober about the scale of defeat.

Recovery is a long road with false dawns and leaders who burn bright then burn out – just look at Labour. 

Their comeback under Starmer was strategic and calculated – discipline over drama, message control over mood music. He focused on stability, donor confidence, seat targeting, and a willingness to disappoint parts of his base to win the country.

In Manchester with the Tories, you could see the early, unglamorous version of the same playbook. Leaders may change before the next election that matters for them, but what endures is the machine.

The activist base – younger than Reform’s – is still here and engaged. The same people I met under Truss in Birmingham 2022 and Sunak in Manchester 2023 are still showing up. 

Sam Hill, a young Conservative from Newcastle who I first met two years ago in Manchester, told me on Monday night, ‘I promised myself if anyone else won the leadership, I was gone. If Badenoch won, I’d hold on – so that’s what I’m doing. I’m holding on.’ 

That sentiment –  neither starry-eyed or sulking and wise to the battering the Tories have taken – was widespread this week, with people strapping in for a long haul.

Reform is soaring, no doubt about it, but it’s also fracturing the right, reaching a ceiling and ironically, laying a Tory path back once the heat cools and tactical voting reasserts itself. Give it a few more cycles of bins, bills, by-elections, and the map for Conservatives will start to look competitive again.

So was Badenoch’s political sugar rush for her base a national strategy? No – it was an ice pack for a bruised party that desperately needed one.

But more importantly than what happened on stage was what happened behind the scenes. This is where the nuts and bolts of a comeback are being pieced together.

Younger activists like Sam, repeatable local messages that have a laser focus on criticising Labour, and donor confidence has, for now, stopped the bleeding.

After 11 turbulent months as leader, Kemi Badenoch needed a win – and she got it. Sure, throw in all the usual caveats – polls, credibility questions and the fact that, beyond me writing this and you reading this, almost no one pays attention to conferences – but in a vacuum, it was good.

She needed to solidify her leadership – and she did. If you were banking on a quick exit, bad news. The leadership dramatics won’t be gone forever, but after this week, Badenoch has taken the wind right out of its sails.

But even if and when Badenoch is defenestrated, those predicting Conservative extinction are way off.

They might be taking a breath, but they’re not dying, and they’re certainly not dead. And frankly, when the potential alternative of Reform is so horrifying, we should all be glad there’s some air left in them yet. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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