It’s a big day for Kemi Badenoch.
A lot rides on her keynote speech, for her, for the party and for the membership of the party including those she still has to convince or never did.
Badenoch opened at the 1922 Committee reception on Sunday night, hosted by ConservativeHome, with a clear outline of what she wanted, It was about not deviating from her plan, and having planned with her team how this specific Conference – her first as leader – should, and would go.
There’s no doubt there was a strategy to outline new policy. How she’s steering the party in a new direction but reviving old traditions. It’s not so much revolution as return to a platform that she’d say was ‘thoroughly Conservative’. She’s faced daily criticism over the last year that ‘nobody knows what you stand for’, or ‘we haven’t seen much of her, where is she?’, or ‘your Party is dead, or dying, or flatlining’ and she’s heard that. Now she’s having her say.
It’s not that she’s been forced to outline policy here – Badenoch is rarely ‘forced’ – but she knew her team could not wait much longer to say ‘be patient we are doing our homework’.She had to produce a big reveal and had to do so now.
She told ConservativeHome on the eve of Conference that she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by bad poll numbers, or the possibility of defections, and whilst there is still the question buzzing around ‘I just wonder if it’s enough’ there genuinely doesn’t seem any appetite at all, despite a good deal of media interest in the idea, for revolution, defenestration or a straight up ‘dump the leader’ story.
Andy Burnham may have re-written the book on how not to do it, but those senior Tories with ‘what will they do next’ tagged on their backs have pushed aside, and even dismissed, every such inquiry. The Party seems to have wanted to make sure this Conference was at best a success for the party – resonance outside is more muted and moot – and at worst not ‘flat’ or a disaster.
When even the usual protestor suspects can’t be bothered to turn up it is interesting Reform UK, and the egregious Zia Yusuf should expend so much energy online telliong everyone ‘the Tories are dead’. If so, why does he seem so bothered?
One senior Tory said of the last few days:
“it’s no surprise that this is all about the leadership talking to the party, almost exclusively. She’s trying to issue the marching orders we’ve been asking for, and we’re trying to show everybody we’re up for the fight, and the promised homework has been done. That seems to be working enough, but is it enough to change the polls. Not just yet, but that prospect does at least seem to be there, and there is, whatever you think of it, a plan towards that. It’s our opponents that think we’re dead, but like that famous quote rumours of our demise seem premature. That’s a good enough result for me right now”
One party member was a little more doubtful last night
“I see the policy, I’m pleased we’re getting that, I like what I’m hearing but to counter Reform I think we need an explanation of how all this hangs together. What’s the vision of Britain that she has, that only the Conservatives can deliver? I’m not sure all the threads have been drawn together in a language, or package if you like, that really does that yet, who knows, ….she still has her speech to go”
Indeed she has. Badenoch is not superhuman, she’s admitted she’s learning the job all the time, having had it less than a year. I’ve met party leaders across the political spectrum that admit in private a big Conference speech is a nerve wracking experience.
Today at least she’s already bedded herself in. She’s spoken on Sunday, she’s already been out on the stage, under the lights, and she likes to project that she’s undaunted and unafraid. She’ll know, and be ready to deliver the final act.
When I was walking her to the stage at the 1922 reception hosted by ConservativeHome, knowing not every MP in the room is a fan, she did what I’d describe as a ‘typical-Kemi’
“I’m not going to do a long speech Giles, just deliver the message to start things off, but I haven’t really got any jokes”
She then got to the stage delivered her message and made a series of rather good jokes that also projected that she’s leader, she’s resilient, she knows what she wants to do, and Tories should ‘get on board’.
She can deliver from a podium. Today she has to.
Again that question crops up everywhere here: ‘We like the sound of it, but is it enough?’
If I could answer that any more than anyone from top to bottom of the rest of the party I’d be very wealthy indeed. Today she has a chance, indeed a big opportunity, to show she can answer that.
Good news is Conference won’t end with the end of the party. When the Tory faithful leave Manchester – having hopefully renewed their Tory faith here, eyes will inexorably turn to arguably a far bigger challenge: May’s elections next year.
Kemi Badenoch may have cemented ‘enough’ to see her forward to next May. She’ll hope and pray she can go through what many predict will be another awful set of results, still just about standing.
In that respect today’s speech may need, not so much the vibe of ‘May the force be with you’ – though that won’t hurt – but more, ‘may the faith be with you’
The final act of Conference is upon us: its message, to keep that faith. In that respect at least, given the past few days, this will not be the final act of the party
