Kemi Badenoch’s decision to go in studs-up over Reform UK’s claim to have surpassed the Conservative Party’s membership has raised the stakes rather dramatically in what ought to have been a relatively trivial, if perhaps embarrassing, story.
When I first saw that her tweet alleging that Reform’s tracker was “a fake [clock] coded to tick up automatically“, I thought the rest of the thread would be evidence to back this up. Instead, the next tweet opens with this: “Like many of you, I am sick of the endless lies, smoke and mirrors, stuff and nonsense politics.”
That’s an unearned punchline. It belongs in the fifth tweet, after you’ve made a convincing case (or proven, ideally) that you’ve caught Reform UK in a lie. Absent that, it’s a hostage to fortune – if it turns out that Badenoch was making an unsupported and untrue allegation, that line is going to look rather ironic, to put it mildly.
She does try to cover her bases in the final tweet with a second line of attack:
“How do I know for certain the Reform announcement is not true? Because the Conservative Party has gained thousands of new members since the leadership election.”
For all we know, this is true. The problem is that by giving battle on this subject, it is now reasonable for journalists and others to ask CCHQ to prove it, something the party is usually reluctant to do (my first paid work for ConservativeHome was trawling through the party’s published accounts trying to reverse-engineer a membership total).
This becomes even more important when Reform is a) giving the media a remarkable degree of access to its own figures (of which more below) and b) actively soliciting evidence to undermine Badenoch’s claim, as Zia Yusuf is doing.
If he is able to verify that a large number of lapsed members were issued ballots in the leadership contest (and this is an ‘if’, I’m not saying he will), that is not only another embarrassing story for the Tories, it also casts doubts on CCHQ’s competence and perhaps even the validity of the result.
Even if not, even a few proven cases will keep the story going and increase pressure on the Conservative Party both to publish its current membership and make the sources of that figure available to the press. So Badenoch’s claim had best be true, is all I’m saying.
Worst of all, however, is that this backup claim has opened up all this potential downside risk despite the headline claim making it a complete sideshow. The allegation that Reform UK’s numbers are fraudulent, not which party has more nominal members, is the bigger story now – and Nigel Farage is winning it.
When Badenoch’s initial thread contained no evidence, there was (and remains, I suppose) a chance that it was simply clumsy media management. She wanted to put the story out there, but kept the smoking gun in reserve to give to the newspapers. But with no sign of anything in the Sundays, that no longer seems likely.
Reform, meanwhile, has counterattacked very effectively. By opening up their figures for scrutiny by most of the right-wing press and Sky News, they have plenty of outlets amplifying the story on their terms, reinforcing their credibility, and lending weight to Nigel Farage’s demand for an apology – not to mention likely driving even more sign-ups.
Response from the Tory side, meanwhile, has come there none. Badenoch has tweeted only thrice since making her allegation about the Reform ticker: to commiserate with the Prime Minister on the loss of his brother, to share a Times editorial making “the case for the defence” of her own leadership (and which emphasises her “strengths as a communicator”), and retweeting the Shadow Home Secretary attacking Labour on illegal migration.
Whether or not, the Conservatives have compelling evidence that Reform UK are lying about their membership ticker (which would now also mean that it has successfully hoodwinked half a dozen news outlets), this is insane story management. Either it is letting its opponents run away with a story it should be winning, or it is simply dragging out a story it will definitely lose. The later and less gracious the apology (or at least, from this leadership, admission of error), the less credit Badenoch will get for it.
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I was originally intending this piece to go into what Reform UK’s membership actually is, how those headline numbers are likely to translate (or not) into serious operational resources in future campaigns, and how it is (or isn’t) different for the Conservatives.
But that will have to wait for another day. Instead, it’s worth reminding ourselves why stories like this are so potentially dangerous for Badenoch’s leadership.
Unlike Robert Jenrick, who fought the leadership on at least a few substantive policy proposals that signalled a general political approach, Badenoch sought – and secured – a purely personal mandate. Members weren’t voting for a programme, a prescription, or even a detailed diagnosis: they were voting for Kemi.
On paper, this gives her enormous freedom of manoeuvre. In reality, it leaves her vulnerable. Her supporters have not, by supporting her, committed themselves to anything; she was widely praised for sticking to “principle rather than policy”, but the principles are so broadly-drawn that they can mean anything to anyone, at least on the right.
As I noted in November: “the previous government went to its grave perfectly capable of talking about its nominal principles.” It just didn’t obviously govern by them.
Combine that with an extremely shallow bench as a result of July’s rout, which gives Badenoch very little room to ride out resignations from the Shadow Cabinet, and you see how easily she could end up stuck in the same unity-through-stasis trap that paralysed the Conservatives in office.
But another problem with this approach is that it makes Badenoch something of a load-bearing boss. Her leadership has a single point of failure and she is it; she has few personal allies and no political confederates, as she has as yet no political project and is in no hurry to set one out.
As a result, everything rests on her personal qualities, what we might call the tradecraft of opposition. This is what Badenoch’s advocates focus on: as mentioned above, the Times praise “her strengths as a communicator”, but that pales compared to her own estimation:
“I know how certain things might sound if they’re not said properly. So I never have gaffes or you know apologising for something that I said… I never have to clarify”.
Readers may recall at least one instance where Badenoch did have to clarify; even without that, this would be another absurd hostage to fortune for any leader to offer – especially when it’s all they’re currently offering.
Which brings us to this story. If CCHQ does turn out to have the smoking gun, all will be well. If not, then Badenoch’s attack will have turned an embarrassing but relatively trivial holiday story with a short half-life into a much bigger, longer-running, and dangerous series of stories that strike right at the heart of her credibility and the Party’s.
This is much more dangerous for Badenoch than the charge of passivity. That at least can be countered with the argument that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Errors like this, on the other hand, reinforce her critics’ interpretation, which is that Badenoch tends to submarine because things go badly when she surfaces, as it did over maternity pay. (Likewise, complaining about the media coverage your opponent is getting does not broadcast confidence.)
In other words: negative-value media management. And when your case for the defence hinges on your communication skills, it isn’t difficult to imagine how this could lead to your leadership coming to be seen as a negative-value proposition.