Wednesday was Kemi Badenoch’s best day yet as Tory leader. Not because CCHQ got to debut its new revenge graphic, but because we learnt that at least 15 out of 21 county councils have indicated to Angela Rayner that they are interested enough in her devolution plans to suspend this year’s elections.
The Times reports that twelve of these are run by the Conservatives. They include areas like Devon, Essex, Suffolk, and Thurrock, where Reform UK hoped to do well. Hundreds of Tory councillors elected at the peak of Boris Johnson’s 2021 vaccine bounce could face a stay of electoral execution until 2028. I’m sure their choice was driven entirely by their passion for Rayner’s plans.
Local elections are an annual referendum on the government, with collecting the bins the prize for the winner. Badenoch would hope to do well. But since these seats were last contested, we have had the worst result in our history, got through four leaders, and Boriswave-d Reform into first place. We are battling Labour to stay out of third.
There was the potential for calamity, or at least serious embarrassment, only six months into her leadership. The loss of, say, the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral election to Andrea Jenkyns would not be far from ideal, but wouldn’t be as big a headache as the loss of hundreds of councillors. The headline narrative would be Reform surging at our expense.
Would this have been fatal to Badenoch’s leadership? Almost certainly not, especially since the 2026 Scottish, Welsh, and local elections look set to provide a much better lever for any Kemi-sceptics to use Nigel Farage’s onward march to pressure her out. Indeed, introducing a list system for elections to their ‘Parliament’ might just be the stupidest thing Welsh Labour have yet done.
But that such a question is even being touted so soon into her tenure is indicative of what, in the spirit of Robert Colvile, we shall term the great acceleration: politics being played at ten times speed. The gap between ecstasy and humiliation is becoming ever shorter. Just ask Boris Johnson. Or Liz Truss. Or Rishi Sunak. Or Keir Starmer.
After two decades of perma-crisis, stagnation, and political ineptitude, voters are far less willing to give politicians the benefit of the doubt. Hence Labour’s tanking ratings. Alongside their basic tone deafness, their failure to immediately be seen to deal with the big three – NHS waiting lists, living standards, and immigration – damned them for the same reasons that hobbled us last July.
The same applies for Leaders of the Opposition. Her admirers draw parallels between Badenoch and Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady had four years to work out what she wanted to do in office. Badenoch should have the same leeway if we want the same results. Focus on Stepping Stones, not sandwiches.
But Thatcher operated in a more deferential age without 24 hours news, Twitter, or a party that has cycled through six leaders in eight years. Nor did she have to contend with a rival right-winger pushing her into third place. Until Badenoch blunts Farage, she will not have the time to sit back, relax, return to first principles, and hope to come up with a couple of policies by the end of 2027.
Understanding what we want to achieve, why we failed, what we will do differently, and what must be done between now and then is essential. But voters won’t notice. Policy is not just government prep, but a way of showing nous vous comprenons. That is what Badenoch is not doing. Stepping Stones tomorrow, outflanking Farage today. She must show she shares their loathing of us.
Can the political pace be slowed? We cannot uninvent social media or rolling news. There is a constant news hunger. The Right-Wing Entertainment Industry requires constant sacrifices. We need scalps, crises, triumphs, and disasters. All of this is terrible for our governance’s quality, but it pays the rent. The real problem comes when MPs can no longer separate illusion from reality.
But we can remove the source of voters’ ire, the driving force behind their dissatisfaction between both traditional parties. Above all, it requires growth. If Truss can tear herself away from suing the Prime Minister into being nice about her, she can be acknowledged as having been right about that.
How to deliver that growth remains a chimera. Both us and Labour fluffed our best opportunities to go big on housing. YIMBYism’s loss will be Farage’s gain. If he fails to deliver it, he will be turned out in turn. The crisis of our democracy will get ever more serious as dysfunction reins.
The stakes for Badenoch are so high. This isn’t about the fate only of her leadership, or the Conservative Party. 2029 will be our Flight 93 election. If she can hold off Farage, stay in place for five years, and win a majority, she will inherit a country in a desperate state with very little time to turn it around. It’s why a thorough policy review is so important, if she has the time to deliver one.
One benefit of this acceleration is that the Overton Window is rapidly expanding. As James Kangasooriam and Patrick Flynn have highlighted, public opinion is already swinging to the right post-election. A Tory leader is already calling for a rape gangs inquiry. How far will we go by 2029?
‘Net zero immigration’ will soon be mainstream. The New New Right is in the ascendant, rocket-boosted by Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Consensus exists amongst those with eyes to see about what a future right-wing government should do. This is not your father’s conservatism. This is a tide that Reform will be able to ride much more easily than we can. But we must try.
We have no divine right to exist. We have sown the wind; we reap the whirlwind. Farage is as much a product of our failures as Labour are. If we are condemned to minor party status, those mourning our irrelevance will be outnumbered by those who think “good riddance”. That’s Badenoch’s challenge – one far more existential than that posed by any set of local elections.