Jenrick only just tops the polls, with Stride and Badenoch swapping places with the pair coming second and third respectively. It comes amid an awkward row over a twitter post from the Tories’ chairman linking Reform UK’s badge to a Nazi one.
53.9 per cent of members think it likely or highly likely Farage will be PM, 69.4 per cent think there’ll be some form of post election deal between Reform and the Conservatives, and 66.3 per cent expect more senior Tories to defect in future.
Beyond the individual movements, the broader pattern is clear. Our pre-conference survey captured a subdued party. The post-conference results, in contrast, suggest a membership energised by the Party’s Manchester outing and a clarified narrative. The reset moment did what it needed to do.
Badenoch does risk overstating the extent to which the Party has worked out the detail on things like withdrawing from the Convention. Fortunately, Labour’s initial counter-argument is moronic.
The logic is sound. If you want, and I know Team Badenoch do, to persuade people you are changed, and new, and departing from the recent past, newbies in new roles is one way of putting that message in the front of the shop window.
Jenrick’s dominance appears to be unassailable. He places comfortably on top, yet again with +70.4. Holden, promoted to shadow transport secretary, has entered the rankings in dead last at -14.9.
The quarter of members who report themselves ‘Indifferent’ to the idea is a little surprising. The Argentine president is, as we see, not an un-radical template to which to commit:
Badenoch as leader has a net satisfaction rating (+18.1) around a quarter of Jenrick’s, and that still marks a vast improvement on her last league table number: 0.0.
Many of them want to return, and may well defect if they don’t see an avenue to do so under Tory colours. Yet party members are unenthusiastic about giving them special treatment in selections.
The bad news for Boris supporters is those who support him coming back (18.7 per cent) and those who’d strongly support it (20.3 percent) are outweighed by those who’d oppose (16.2 percent) and who’d strongly oppose (30.3 percent) by a margin of 7.5 per cent.
59.4 percent of our panel thought the Party’s response was inadequate. This does not suggest what response they’d have preferred nor any uniformity of view on what response should have been. It does, however, point to a level of overall frustration being expressed by members.
As one shadow cabinet member told ConservativeHome, and it is something echoed by Tory backbenchers too: “There is a load of dead weight.” Clearly our Members’ Panel are starting to agree.
Whatever the theoretical merits of a slower approach to rebuilding, circumstances preclude it. The prognosis of these results is plausibly terminal.
The Shadow Justice Secretary has certainly won the hearts of the membership in our league table – but to what extent is that simply an artefact of not being in charge?
Right now for the leader’s team the major focus is the local elections, but a combination of variables around those results could, and it is still theoretical, cause Kemi Badenoch a headache, or worse.