Have a Go if You Think You’re Badenoch

Ben Wildsmith

A joke doing the rounds of the Starmerati this weekend is that Sir Keir will have to declare Kemi Badenoch’s ascension to the Tory leadership as a gift.

In this reading, Conservative despair is such that the party has elected a novelty act as leader.

Surely, it can only be further proof, as if any were needed, that Labour now occupies every square inch of electoral real estate. All that is left for opposition parties are the barren outskirts where Jeremy Corbyn cultivates his juniper tree, and Enoch Powell’s ghost flickers in monochrome impotence.

In the real world, as inhabited by hardworking Britons, voters project their dreams on to the vast, white canvas of Wes Streeting’s face, their fortunes entwined with his career prospects. Who could argue with that?

Well, clearly someone can, because Badenoch took the helm of a party that is ahead in the polls. 

I must admit, I didn’t have that on my bingo card, but on Rishi Sunak’s last day, he has a CV-worthy accomplishment to his name at last.

Resurgent popularity

With respect to the outgoing leader, I think it would be fanciful to ascribe the Tories’ resurgent popularity solely to his work as Leader of the Opposition.

Whilst it remains illegal to criticise the government directly during their official ‘give them a chance’ period, it seems that some voters are not as delighted as they have been told they are.

Part of the reason for this has been poor messaging. Centrist governments, by definition, annoy a wide range of people. In trying to spread the cost of their decisions across society, they lose a committed ideological base.

To keep afloat in this fashion requires political skill and a unifying theme. Whilst memories of Tony Blair’s ‘things can only get better’ early years might be enough to trigger PTSD in retrospect, at the time he managed to project optimism successfully.

This government’s approach is rooted in expectation management. It came into office performatively ringing the death knell over UK economics and trying to buy time for any improvement.

Impatient

Sixteen years on from the economic crash, however, the UK public is understandably impatient for the prospect of better times.

Austerity ruined the UK’s initial attempts to recover from the calamity of 2008, and Brexit entrenched stagnation after that.

With the right of UK politics split at the election, it may well be that Labour could have won it without ruling out a partial reversal of Brexit and with a less cautious economic model. Having made hostages to fortune out of these issues in its manifesto, Labour must now edge towards sanity by stealth.

Rachel Reeves’ loosening of Jeremy Hunt’s fiscal rule last week was the first step in that direction.

Opaquely written agreements with the EU will likely follow.

Badenoch explicitly refused to advance policies during her leadership campaign. She’s tied to nothing except a vague awareness by the public that she’s socially conservative.

This creates space for her to attack the government from any direction that seems likely to work. As the government seeks to operate from the centre, each decision will create discontent in a portion of its winning coalition.

It is simple for a combative politician to exploit that predicament and turn ‘working for everyone’ into ‘working for no one’.

Vulnerable

The nuances and compromises required of a centrist administration are particularly vulnerable to the one-line memescape of contemporary politics. Badenoch seems supremely comfortable in the politics of outrage.

Unlike Boris Johnson, she seems unconcerned by widespread popularity. Hers is a more Trumpian style of confrontation and derision.

The dismissal of Badenoch’s prospects this weekend echo much of what was said about Margaret Thatcher back in 1975. Similarly, it might turn out to be dangerously complacent.

Badenoch is a compelling character who knows how to capture the narrative. In that, she bears similarities not only to Trump but to Nigel Farage.

How the right wing of UK politics aligns in the coming years is unpredictable. How many potential Tory voters have disappeared down the Tommy Robinson rabbit hole?

Is disillusionment with the party permanent or specific to its recent performance? Is Reform UK solely a vehicle for Farage, or does it have the potential to challenge for power?

Here’s Badenoch from an LBC interview in 2022.

“I don’t need people whose only experience of being black is being an ethnic minority in the UK to tell me what that means. You can be black and a Tory and successful.”

It’s clear that the language of debate in the UK is about to change. Badenoch’s approach to Labour, under its 22nd white, male leader, will be discomfiting. Its response might be defining.