The Guardian’s opinion on Kemi Badenoch’s speech: Walking down the path of denial, delusion and defeat | Editorial
yourAmy Badenoch has survived her first Conservative Party conference as leader, an achievement of sorts. It fails in every other measure. She did not provide a plausible explanation for her party’s defeat in last year’s elections, and without an explanation, the chances of regaining lost supporters or recruiting new supporters are slim.
When she talks about the Conservatives’ past record, her analysis is superficial and disingenuous. When it promises a better future, its prescriptions become outdated and misleading. As for an explanation for her current predicament – dismal poll numbers, shrinking and demoralizing membership, and a spate of defections from the UK Reform Party that could turn into a deluge – she is silent.
Ms Badenoch’s keynote speech at the conclusion of the conference on Wednesday was a mixture of denial, delusion and outdated dogma. She has lamented the state of Britain’s economy and public services without any sign of remorse for the damaging effect that 14 years of Conservative government may have had on the state of the nation.
The twin causes of the decline, she asserts with great enthusiasm, are inflation and excess immigration. Its formula for renewal is to cut public spending, fire a third of civil servants, scrap all of Labour’s tax measures to raise revenues, cut other taxes, and repudiate Britain’s obligations under international treaties as a precursor to the mass deportation of unwelcome foreigners. It would also abandon Britain’s legal obligations to reduce carbon emissions.
It is a program carefully molded to fit the contours of the Conservatives’ post-Brexit comfort zone. It contains no original thought. There is no acknowledgment that the world of 2025 needs political solutions different from those that the far-right wing of the Conservative Party has been advocating for decades, and which were tried while he was in office with disastrous consequences.
Somewhat pitifully, Ms. Badenoch presents this outdated reworking of old ideas as the product of her tireless diagnosis of the contemporary challenges facing Britain. This is a necessary fiction, because it cannot admit that its original timetable for policy development – nothing that can be fixed before 2027 – has been abandoned. She has regressed to premature statements by colleagues who fear losing more votes and colleagues in favor of UK reform.
The absence of sustained criticism of Nigel Farage’s party was the most telling aspect of Ms Badenoch’s speech. I mentioned the reform leader only once, and in the context of public spending, which is a marginal feature of his agenda.
A leader who was serious about rehabilitating the Conservative Party as a center-right party aspiring to govern responsibly, and on behalf of all British citizens, would have dealt with the rise of xenophobic nationalism that Farage’s opinion polls portend. But how can she do that when the same toxic tide is sweeping through her party? She can’t even rebuke Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, for complaining about his experience in a multiracial Birmingham suburb on the grounds that he had never encountered “another white face”.
Mr Jenrick’s comments, reported by The Guardian, were made earlier this year. At the Conservative Party conference this week, he was striving to avoid undermining Ms Badenoch, not because he has abandoned ideas of replacing her, but because potential supporters find his clear stance to that end repulsive.
Moreover, there is no need for ambitious rivals to destabilize a leader adept at self-destruction. Perhaps a disastrous conference would have accelerated the process of being thrown out the window. Instead, it is doomed to continue recycling old ideas, hide from current problems, and appears utterly defeated in the task of restoring conservatism to future relevance.