Kemi Badenoch’s first big speech of 2024 was meant to seize the news agenda and tell the public that the Tory party is changing under her leadership. Yet in a sign of the difficulties opposition leaders have getting their messages out, Badenoch had to compete with the Labour government announcement of a ‘rapid national audit’ and new local inquiries into the grooming gangs scandal. The timing of Yvette Cooper’s statement to the House – 20 minutes into Badenoch’s speech – meant it was Labour leading the news in Westminster this afternoon.
However, that’s not to say it was a wasted opportunity. After Badenoch told her shadow cabinet last week that they needed to focus their efforts on winning back voter trust, the Tory leader used the speech to admit the Tory party had made mistakes and say that the way forward means an honest conversation with the public that will involve saying ‘some things that aren’t easy to hear’. She opened with one such hard truth: ‘We are all getting poorer.’ Badenoch went on to list some of the mistakes her party had made from announcing the UK would leave the European Union before there was a plan for growth, making it law to deliver net zero by 2050 without working out what it meant and promising to lower immigration only for the numbers to rise significantly.
Badenoch’s solution? Not to unveil a new policy offer but instead to promise an honest conversation so these mistakes are avoided in the future:
Under my leadership our party is going to be about telling it straight. We need more people in politics who will do the right thing – and who will use their common sense even when they are attacked.
When I was a Minister I took on extremists who were putting women and children in harm’s way. They called me a transphobe. They even called me homophobic they said I was fighting culture wars as I tried to stop young children from receiving irreversible transgender procedures without any evidential basis.
In the question and answer session that followed, Badenoch was asked if it was all a bit gloomy. Her reply was that the Tory party had only recently suffered a historic defeat so it would be rather odd if she was walking around with a huge smile on her face. I asked Badenoch whether she wanted to apologise to the public for anything the Tories had done. She said that she was more interesting in doing and focussing on the future than apologising and going over the past. Badenoch was also quizzed on the Reform threat after Nigel Farage appeared ahead of the Tories in various polls.
Would she be tempted to agree to a pact or merger? The Tory leader replied that Farage wants to destroy the Tories, so he was not someone she would work with. Badenoch also created some mild controversy when she referred to Rachel Reeves’s troubles with the economy as Starmer’s ‘women problem’. When she was asked why gender came into it, Badenoch responded that it was Reeves who had been keen to talk herself up as the first female chancellor, so gender had been first brought into the debate by Labour.
Did Badenoch get what she wanted from the speech? The Tory leader landed her points – the question is whether the right audience was listening. While Labour’s grooming gang announcement was a distraction, it can also be counted as a win for the opposition. Badenoch was quick to join Elon Musk, the owner of X, in calling for an inquiry. While Labour is yet to go all the way in meeting those demands with a large scale inquiry, Starmer has been forced to change his position over the past week. Yet it’s a reminder that without firm policy announcements and positions, Badenoch could struggle to make the political weather in the coming months.
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