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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Watch this space. This was the essence of Kemi Badenoch’s new year’s message to the country. Though often bland, these missives should offer a sense of how parties hope to frame debate in the coming months. The Tory leader had nothing more than “please stay on the line, your call is important to us”.
Politics abhors a vacuum and while no one expects Badenoch to have worked out her entire platform two months into the job, she does not have as much time as she thinks. Many people are watching this space and not with forbearance. Tories are alarmed at the energy and attention being generated by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and already discussing how long she has.
One serious and well-connected observer recently confided that Boris Johnson was an even bet to be the next prime minister. He is not alone in this argument and a glance at the former Tory leader’s recent autobiography leave little doubt that the man himself has not ruled out the possibility.
Perhaps such talk is prompted by the imminent (and once implausible) return of Donald Trump or the sense of crisis bringing a maverick air to western politics. Johnson fits that mould, though there are persuasive reasons why it will not happen. His closest supporters have all departed Westminster. He lacks a base in the country and whatever the UK’s equivalent of the Maga crowd might be, it is looking at Farage. Above all, he reminds voters of why the Tory brand is discredited.
What such chatter does illuminate though is the depth of the Conservative funk. The Boris theory is ultimately a bet on continued decline and desperation. Once, a beaten Tory party could slowly rebuild and wait for the pendulum to swing their way. But the rise of Reform denies Badenoch that time and space. Farage may be training his fire on Labour but his first mission is to establish himself as the real opposition.
Badenoch’s first weeks have been uninspiring, unfocused and, at times, she has even played into Reform’s hands. While she is finding her feet, Farage has been hogging the headlines. Both GB News and the Telegraph, two of the most important media outlets for the right, now appear little more than extensions of his marketing operation. Membership has risen and he has enjoyed the benediction of Elon Musk. Farage has social media smarts and an eye for a news story. Even when he is not winning directly he is influencing and altering the debate, most obviously in immigration.
Above all, there is an appetite for his message that the two big parties are failing — and indistinguishable. At the last election Labour and the Tories together jointly secured just 57 per cent of the vote. The space for a breakthrough disrupter appears to be widening.
Already, prominent Conservatives are talking of the deal which must be done with him to regain power. Even so, it is possible to see past some of the hype. Though likely to enjoy local election gains over the next 18 months, Reform has a long way to travel yet. A recent opinion poll electrified its allies by projecting it could win 71 seats at the next election. Yet that same poll also showed the Tories nearly doubling their current tally. And in as far as one can take such an early poll seriously, its essential message was disillusion with Labour.
An alternative interpretation might be that Reform is emerging as a nationalist facsimile of the Liberal Democrats (a parallel Farage acknowledges) but on the right of politics, a piratic party with geographic and demographic support and potential in areas where the Conservatives struggle to challenge Labour. Reform has an appeal to both left and right, including poorer and older Labour voters. Ideological inconsistencies abound but challenger parties are generally less punished for this.
For all its talk of winning, Reform’s real goal remains to do well enough to hold the balance of power and force a change in the UK’s electoral system, which can then permanently reshape the political map.
None of this is to underestimate the party’s potential, not least to force other parties on to its agenda. Its momentum is a ghost of politics yet to come. Its growth relies on an unpopular government and an unappealing opposition; the polls show continued electoral fragmentation of the kind which allows parties to win seats on relatively low vote shares. But while Labour has a bit of time to recover support, Badenoch does not. It is silly to write her off now, but even sympathisers suggest she has a year to 18 months to prove she can rebuild the party.
It may be that by the next election some kind of deal (or just a non-aggression pact) is necessary. But Badenoch does not have to panic now. Besides, any deal which leads to electoral reform is not in her party’s interests. What she does need to do is change Reform’s narrative by putting the Conservatives back into the national conversation as the primary voice of opposition and on subjects other than immigration. Happily, Labour has gifted opportunities on the economy that mesh with her low-tax deregulatory instincts. The Tories, and Badenoch especially, need to prosecute the case against Rachel Reeves’ tax rises. Looking effective here will buy her the time to flesh out her agenda.
Badenoch was elected because Tories felt she had the charisma and conviction to win them a hearing. But the revenants of the right are rising around her and she does not have the luxury of leisure to figure it out while a grateful nation waits and watches.
