Inside the Kemi conversion that could fuel a Tory comeback

Kemi Badenoch could have been finished as Tory leader by now. Despite maintaining a calm public facade – “wait for the results”, they said, “it was never going to be a matter of months” – concern was privately creeping in amongst the Leader of the Opposition’s office (LOTO). Would she really be allowed to hold on that long? But here we are. A month has passed since disgruntled Tory MPs could have submitted a letter of no-confidence to the 1922 committee and, despite rumours of a whole string of names lining up with their pens, Badenoch remains firmly in place.

She has chalked up a run of PMQs wins, delivered a Budget response that earned plaudits from her usual critics, and – at last – the dial is beginning to see a bit of a shift in the polls, nudging the party into second place in some instances.

Reform, meanwhile, look to be in a moment of plateau (nothing to be shirked at if plateauing is at a very strong first place on around 30 per cent), where the Tories have seen a gentle uptick of a few points (to the surprise of some in Badenoch’s party). Over the past fortnight, the Conservative vote share has risen from 17 to 19 per cent, according to analysis of the latest three YouGov surveys. Her personal ratings have risen eight points too.

As one Tory said to me: “Her improvement has been quite remarkable… I just don’t understand how you can be so crap, then suddenly so good.”

Many of Badenoch’s parliamentary colleagues have too been surprised by the turnaround that has come since party conference after what one shadow minister referred to as “a wasted year”: “One of the most frustrating things about it has been knowing that this level of performance was always there but we weren’t getting it for an entire year. It put us massively on the back foot and why?” (Even now, the polls remain below the 25 per cent the party managed when Badenoch first became leader.) Only the day before the Budget, a backbencher was asking me whether she “just hasn’t got it in her” – adding, with some acidity, that “if that’s the case, she didn’t have to put herself forward for it”. After the Budget, the same MP texted: “Kemi did fantastically.”

Her allies argue the first year was hardly the moment to flourish. There were fires everywhere: the party’s finances, its unity, needing to create a new policy platform. Now, they say, the basics are steadier – and Badenoch looks like she’s starting to enjoy herself.

“In the first year she had Rob [Jenrick] causing problems while she went to do the thinking about where the party goes next. Yes, she left a gap which he filled quite well, but remember she had a party to save basically from bankruptcy,” one shadow cabinet minister tells me. 

The Conservatives have been steadily raising funds, even if they were blown out of the water in the latest figures by Reform’s £9m donation. But those in the party don’t seem too concerned yet.“It is a f***er,” one Tory MP concedes, but “they aren’t developing any breadth or depth in financing beyond it”.

Now the firefighting has eased somewhat, the shadow cabinet minister adds: “I think we can all see that Kemi is starting to have more fun with the job. She looks happier, lighter.”

Badenoch shuffled her team over summer and has been seeing the dividends from the move. One of the most important things to have come about from it, those close to her say, is finally realising that opposition is a totally different beast to government and to not treat them the same way.

“Being leader of the opposition often involves a lot of performance. Take PMQs, it is a theatre and for too long Kemi was getting herself bogged down in the details and trying to run the party like a think tank,” another shadow cabinet minister tells me.

“People thought she was incapable of thinking on her feet and reacting but you can’t say that now. Now she is watching the chamber, quipping about the Prime Minister mansplaining to Reeves, or pointing along the line of depressed Labour ministers, toying with them to guess who has been leaking this time.”

A LOTO source adds: “I genuinely think she is finding her feet. She is strong and has a killer instinct.”

Her CCHQ team has also noticed a difference. At the start of her time as Leader, she needed some convincing to try new things, like a selfie video for social media. Now I’m told during video filming she’s directing colleagues to make sure the clips land blows and look sharp.

Even her own front bench can’t quite put their fingers on how the change came about. One theory is about comfortability in the job and that with practice comes both improvement and increased confidence. Another is that the hard work behind the scenes leading up to party conference – including a policy blitz and big speech – paid off, freeing her to move. Put simply by one of her allies: “She has got her mojo.”

One shadow cabinet minister thinks her development is one of the things really spooking Labour, whose backbenches are now far quieter during Badenoch’s weekly PMQs performance, but also Reform, who launched a major attack ad campaign on the Tories this week: “The thing people are realising with Kemi is that she is only getting better and growing into it. Can the same be said for other leaders?”

Recent chatter has suggested that Nigel Farage has been talking about some form of merger or pact between the two parties at the next general election, with the Reform UK leader then publicly saying he “would be more than happy to talk to” Jenrick about him joining the party (Jenrick has said he is not going anywhere. “It is utterly batshit,” according to a shadow cabinet minister. It might, however, now make it hard for Reform head of policy Zia Yusuf to keep attacking the shadow justice secretary – he can’t really call him a fraud anymore when his leader would welcome a potential defection.

“This is all from their side. They are rattled about the FT piece and Kemi climbing in the polls,” another Tory MP adds.

Phase two of Badenoch’s leadership plan was always about credibility, focusing on becoming an alternative to government instead of Labour – although they didn’t expect Labour ripping themselves apart so readily. This, evidently, is where she thinks she can pull clear of Reform too.

Some in her shadow cabinet want to keep using the economy against both Reform and Labour, and want to see Badenoch “press the bruise and go for the kill” when it comes to the position of Chancellor Rachel Reeves. But according to one shadow cabinet minister: “Too many colleagues are so scared of doing anything political. God forbid we cut through.” Badenoch herself, they say, is yet “to be convinced” by the arguments. This is where the more politically minded in the Tory party question, even if her performances are clearly getting sharper, whether that killer instinct one of her LOTO team mentioned really exists. Yes the trend over the past few weeks has improved, but a significant revival is yet to come – May’s local council elections could still prove an awkward moment for Kemi and co.

Confidence and character make a real difference, and as the pollster Luke Tryl points out, the public do seem to prefer politicians who seem to be enjoying the job. The next step could be starting to show that softer, funny side of Badenoch that her friends speak of, without it coming at the expense of being political and attacking a failing government.

But the Conservative Party is almost never happy and, as one Tory MP who has still not been convinced by Badenoch says: “The worry is this means she actually stays until the election.”