“Kemi can talk the talk, but MPs and peers will never allow her to walk the walk. They will only leave her in post for as long as they need her to keep the party afloat…and then just like all the others, she’ll be gone” Rt Hon Nadine Dorries on X 20 Oct 2026
Nadine Dorries, much like Nadhim Zahawi a frustrated wannabe peer and defector, is also, like her fellow frustrated-ambition colleague Suella Braverman, a celebrated writer of fiction.
However the tweet (you can hardly call it ‘an X’) above is the stubborn last redoubt of the dug in Reformer and it just doesn’t stand up.
A year ago when Kemi Badenoch seemed to find her mojo – having worried a lot of Conservatives she’d lost it on becoming leader – the attack lines towards her morphed.
At first it was ‘same old Tories’ – an irony because they meant same as a recent form of Tories rather than old Tories like Thatcher.
“Can’t change, won’t change’ was Rob Jenrick’s version after being sacked from a party that had also closed down his ambitions.
But for the last year or so it has solidified into a mantra, consumed, digested and endlessly repeated by any mouthpiece Reform can get to regurgitate it. It takes the form that Nadine produced a few days ago and is often served with a side order of
“the problem is they are all secretly Lib Dems and will stop her doing what she wants”
There’s more than one problem with this whole construct not least that when you try to get anyone who says it to list who these secret Lib Dems are, they either name people who aren’t actually in the party anymore, or make suggestions so ludicrous it defies reason. (My personal favourite example was John Wittingdale, who, knowing John, the idea he was remotely a Lib Dem would come as quite the shock!)
Three names are often thrown at me: Tom Tugendhat (now in Kemi’s shadow cabinet) Alicia Kearns (also now in the shadow team) – which they can’t do unless they sign up to Badenoch’s red lines – and Caroline Nokes, who in conversation at Conference found the notion she was a Lib Dem or a Badenoch opponent quite funny. Besides as a deputy speaker she doesn’t get to vote so hardly a bedrock of sedition.
But this has all been said before, so before we dismantle the idea further let’s just remind ourselves what the lady herself has said talking to me three weeks ago:
“I don’t think anyone’s ever stopped me from doing what I want to do. They certainly have tried, but they’ve… they have not succeeded. We need to show that we have changed. This is why I’ve said: if you want to stand as a candidate, you’ve got to agree with certainly the two policies that I think will make the biggest difference in solving the country’s problems: leaving the ECHR and scrapping net zero targets.”
Now of course you might suggest, ‘well she would say that wouldn’t she’ but it’s more than just words and this week it’s been clearly demonstrated as action.
Andrew Boff a stalwart of the London Conservatives and a prospective candidate for London Mayor so many times he’s like Larry the Cat – just always there. But he has now run out of nine mayoral lives and left the party. Well, his choice, but those red lines, particularly the ECHR were a problem for him, and meant that finally he could not stand to be the Tory candidate for Mayor.
There was no special dispensation, no ‘fudging it for a friend of the party’, he doesn’t believe in leaving the ECHR, so he doesn’t get to stand, and so he left.
Now his decision I think was made on principle, and that’s to his credit but in essence Badenoch’s point is principal and practical.
If in government again there needs to be a parliamentary party united on what business they must get through the house in order to make change. A faction riven party chasing their own agendas won’t deliver. Look at Labour’s experience not just the last Conservative government benches. It’s as much tactical and practical as it’s about policy.
The meanest of students looking at recent Conservative history, will see that quite apart from the endless churn of leaders, the parliamentary party after 2016 (and probably before) was ruled by factions and groups all of which had their own tenets of belonging – it was all very Game of Thrones, the infamous ‘five families’ – oh, and it made the public furious.
A number of those who left for a new career in Reform were strong members of some of those factions, Danny Kruger founded one of them with our columnist Miriam Cates. Likewise Prosper UK contains many of those who would describe themselves as centre-right, or just centrist, who held that position and voted accordingly when in Parliament and in some case when still in the party.
Prosper is an interesting example because it’s where Reform tends to go to, to say: “there, there they are, the people who will stop Kemi” and yet there’s not a single sitting MP among them. I get flak simply because David Gauke writes a column for us. It’s not quite “reds under the bed’ hysteria but it’s close.
But Gavin Barwell has had the whip suspended, he sided with Andrew Boff on social media:
“This is a prime example of why this policy is so wrong headed. It is going to drive lifelong Conservatives out of the party, and the party will be the poorer for it”
Of course the whole point for Badenoch is that in parliamentary terms it isn’t. She doesn’t much buy into that argument as a whole, but in Parliamentary terms this matters:
Because this is where the maths comes in and exposes the flaw in the whole “they’ll never let her do it” concept.
Boff may have left this week, but three candidates were selected, who do sign up to the red lines and willingly.
Ameet Jogia in Hendon where he only lost in 2024 by 15 votes. He would not have been able to run again if not signed up to the programme, and like others he’ll have had to argue and convinced local Conservatives that he meant it to get re-selected.
David Thompson in Maidstone and Malling who told our Columnist Matthew Jeffery after his selection this week that the Badenoch red lines were not about being forced:
“Look, it’s less about the insistence; it’s more about whether it’s the right thing to do or not. We have said that energy is growth and growth is the thing that’s missing from our economy. We need cheaper energy and the way to get that is by thinking again about some of the legislation, some of the regulation and some of the taxes that we’ve bound our energy production in. So it’s the right thing to do for all of those reasons”
Tom Bennett was chosen as candidate for Chelsea & Fulham from a very strong field of candidates. He too does not see a problem with forging a team singing from the same song sheet:
“At the next election it will be crucial not just that we return a Conservative Government, but that we are able to start executing our plans from day one. In order to do that, we need a healthy level of alignment amongst our MPs, and I think it’s sensible for the party to set that out an early stage, while still leaving plenty of room for new ideas and debate. I have no problem with that, and think it is very pragmatic.
In terms of dropping the legal targets for Net Zero in particular, this is purely about common sense. I co-founded an environmental technology company, and have spent many years developing technology to improve the environment. To my mind the proposal to scrap this legislation will have no negative impact on the environment, as all it was doing was making it increasing unviable to keep manufacturing or other high-energy use businesses in the country. Driving such business overseas through high electricity prices does nothing to lower global carbon emissions, it purely shifts the source. In fact, it often increases emissions as the destination country usually has dirtier, more carbon emitting, sources of electricity.”
The point is, if Badenoch is even able to do the things she wants to do, she will, logically need far more MPs than she currently has, and people coming to be potential MPs are already signed up to her programme.
She may well have the stomach to brook no dissent, but the fact is despite endless repetition even from the likes of Nadine Dorries, I’m not sure she’s going to get much, and if she does, she’ll have the numbers not to be troubled by it.