Why Kemi Is Set to Kamikaze the Tories

After fourteen years of austerity, low growth, a cost of living crisis, an underfunded NHS, and Brexit; the British public decided that they had enough of the Conservative Party and thus handed them their worst ever result at this year’s election. In his concession speech, Rishi Sunak announced that he would step down as leader of the Conservatives. Kemi Badenoch was later elected as leader in a bid to take the fight to Labour.

The political spectrum regularly shifts. In no form is this more evident than in the evolution of the Conservative Party over the last fourteen years. Since David Cameron’s departure in 2016, the party has drifted from the centre right to the right. Kemi Badenoch was elected to take the Conservatives even further right.

However, the Conservatives are not alone on the right wing of politics. They have Reform UK as company. In the seven months since the election, Reform UK have taken a shock lead in a recent YouGov voting intention poll. The poll has them at 25% of the voting share, 1% ahead of Labour and 4% ahead of the Conservatives. This poll, among many other polls, reflect that Kemi Badenoch is yet to regain the electorate’s trust in the Tories. It also reflects my belief that the Conservatives are not the face of right wing politics in the UK, despite Badenoch’s attempts to make them so. Reform UK have now become the face of the right wing in Britain.

This leads to my argument that if the Conservatives have any ambition towards being in government again, they need to change the culture of the party so that it reflects a party of the centre right. This cannot happen with Kemi Badenoch as leader. In their current position within the political spectrum, I don’t see a reality where they ever get a large share of the vote. The place in which Badenoch is trying to take the Conservatives is dominated by Reform UK in vote share, so she won’t make any gains there. In the election, the Liberal Democrats won a record 72 seats, as the vote share of the centre drifted away from the Tories. If Badenoch continues to take the party further right, the Liberal Democrats will see a repeat of this success.

Ultimately, Kemi Badenoch is not going to lead the Conservative Party back into government. The right wing vote share she craves looks to be swinging towards Reform UK; and her abandonment of the centre is not going to win her many votes there either. As Badenoch has ruled out a deal with Reform, calling them a ‘protest party’, the Tories only chance of winning the next election is to return towards the centre right of the spectrum. This would help them take some of the vote share from Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Kemi Badenoch will not do this. Therefore, Kemi Badenoch will never take the Conservative Party into Government.