There Will Be No 'Keminaissance' for the Tories
Kemi Badenoch's personal popularity is soaring, but media talk of a Conservative revival is premature. To be the dominant party on the right, you need to bury your rivals, not borrow their policies.
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The “Keminaissance” is over, before it had even really begun. That portmanteau term was used by some UK political commentators to describe what they saw as a strengthening of support for the Conservative party under the leadership of Kemi Badenoch. As so often with political illusions, it was shattered by the encounter with real voters. In all the elections for the Greater Manchester mayoralty the Conservative candidate had been second-placed. In this by-election, caused by the election of Andy Burnham as MP for Makerfield, the Tories came fifth.
It was a humiliation in so many dimensions for Badenoch. Reform, who were well beaten, were the right-wing party in the run-off against Labour’s victorious Bev Craig. Even in Labour’s landslide of 2024, the Tories were the second most popular party in the north-west region with a share of around 20% of the vote. If they are to have any chance of forming a government, they need to increase that share to at least a third of voters. Yet, this time their vote was halved to under 10% – and they were behind not only Reform, who came second, but also the Greens and the new far-right party Restore Britain. This latter party is so far from the centre-right mainstream that its leader, Rupert Lowe, tolerates neo-Nazis as members.
The result draws attention to the fact that there is not a single opinion poll which shows the Conservatives back to the 24% they gained at the last general election which, remember, they lost by a landslide. So what is the basis for the legacy media’s assessment that Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is doing well if it isn’t the polls?