Badenoch has fallen into the trap that locks parties out of power

The Conservative Party is keen to show it is now ready to return to government, two and a half years after a historic defeat. The party’s conference began with the release of a 100-page document, a guide to the governing principles of Kemi Badenoch. Today, Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith unveiled a policy platform of tax cuts and deregulation. Yet running through it all is an avoidance of the biggest question hanging over the party: have they learned anything from 2024? The party’s dominant narrative is that failure in that election stemmed from not being conservative enough. “Talked right, governed left” is a common refrain, and one which has permeated most internal post-mortems. Badenoch appears to have fully embraced it. Her purges of the candidates list and exclusion of those who won’t oppose the European Convention on Human Rights and Net Zero promise a new internal discipline. Her future government will not be undermined by a lack of will. This reading of events is psychologically comfortable for those within the Tory tent. It posits that defeat came from not being able to do what they really wanted, and instead being reduced to half-measures and compromises. But it is a self-absorbed, self-soothing explanation that fails to reckon with the reasons many voters turned on the Conservative Party. There certainly was anger from many right-wing voters about immigration, but that was far from the sole frustration. NHS waiting lists had surged after Covid. Cuts to the police and the criminal justice system had undermined crime prevention. Austerity imposed on councils, combined with unsustainable social care, hit things like road repair and rubbish collections, the sort of government services even firm Tory voters care about. The party had also torched its reputation for competence with the Truss budget and scandals from Partygate to Chris Pincher. There was a further cultural issue, too. Brexit and other pivots to right-wing rhetoric alienated soft Tory voters, especially among younger demographics. Blaming a lack of “Real Conservatism” ignores these causes. It also fails to understand the political pressures which pushed the party into the choices it made. Failure to reduce immigration was not simply a lack of courage; it was an unwillingness to accept the fiscal consequences. The party wanted to avoid wage pressure from labour shortages and maintain a steady supply of workers for the health and social care sectors. Planning reform failed because Conservative voters and MPs were NIMBYs too, and the party bottled any changes after losing the 2021 Chesham and Amersham by-election. The Tories dropped their standalone planning bill after the Lib Dem campaign focused on opposing housing and HS2 overturned a massive majority, with many MPs in similar seats getting spooked by the result. An ideologically strong party still faces political and policy trade-offs. Everything you want to do comes with costs, and the public may not be willing to bear them. Simply delivering your ideology in the purest form is rarely what anyone beyond your base really wants. The great political reconstructions have relied on facing hard truths and correcting the weaknesses of the party involved. Through the ’90s, Blair and Brown faced Labour’s problem head-on: the party was not trusted to look after people’s money. The way back to government required fixing this, which in turn led to the abolition of Clause IV – which called for state ownership of industry – and, later, tight commitments on taxing and spending. Doing so reassured voters and broadened Labour’s appeal. Blair’s success inflicted a historic defeat on the Conservatives and forced them to reckon with their own rebuild. In a famous conference speech in 2002, Theresa May admitted many saw the Tories as “the nasty party“, an image they had to shed if they ever hoped to govern again. After a further defeat in 2005, David Cameron delivered the rebrand, talking up his environmental credentials and making the party more accepting of things which an increasingly socially liberal Britain was ready for, like gay marriage. These moves may have been largely superficial, but they helped people feel comfortable voting Conservative again when the economy faltered after the financial crisis. No such pivot is happening at the current conference. The Tories have come to Birmingham calling for a return to orthodoxy, with similar lines about cutting benefits and regulation. Even so, they seem trapped by the same contradictions – pledging to cut benefits, but not the winter fuel payments and triple lock on pensions that go to their voters. So far, everything seems directed at the people who have stayed within the Conservative tent. The policies and principles are repeats of the old favourites, promises to “really get it done” next time they have power. There is no Clause IV or “hug-a-hoodie” moment this year in Birmingham. The Conservative Party is not indicating that it has changed or is seeking to broaden its appeal. Indeed, it is doing the opposite: it is a party returning to its core, restating all the old ideas voters have rejected but harder and louder. Previous successful reboots required Conservatives to look outwards. But Badenoch’s party is determined to turn inwards.