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Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is to focus more on the economy in a bid to turn around her fortunes, amid signs that her attempt to fight Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on immigration and “woke” issues has not worked.
Senior Tories say Badenoch’s new economic emphasis reflects a shadow cabinet view that it is an area where Sir Keir Starmer’s record is weak and Farage’s populist party lacks credibility.
“There will be less about some of the woke issues and more about the economy,” said one senior Conservative MP. “It’s what people care about and the government has a record we can attack.”
Several shadow cabinet ministers confirmed the change of tack, with one saying: “This has come from Kemi. Reform’s weak spot is business credibility and fiscal discipline.”
She debuted the new approach on Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions, where she tackled Starmer on rising unemployment, framed Labour’s employer national insurance rise as a “jobs tax” and criticised his “tiny tariff deal” with the White House.
Badenoch’s allies insist she has been talking about the economy for months but there is a sense among some senior Conservatives that she has become associated with issues including gender and immigration.
George Osborne, former Tory chancellor, said last week: “I don’t personally think chasing Nigel Farage’s tail is going to work.” He told LBC: “If we spoke a little bit less about transgender toilets and a bit more about taxes, then we might be on to something.”
Farage’s Reform UK trounced the Conservatives in this month’s English local elections, in spite of Badenoch’s tough stance on immigration, gender recognition laws and her initially pro-Donald Trump rhetoric.
Badenoch’s spokesperson said the “focus is going to sharpen on specific policy areas in the coming weeks and months” but denied the Tory leader had neglected the economy: “She has been talking about it for months,” he said.
“Our entire local government elections message was about winter fuel, the ‘jobs tax’, the farm tax and so on,” he added.
One veteran Tory official noted the party had nudged ahead of Labour on economic trust. The Conservatives were on 23.8 per cent, while Labour were on 22.8 per cent on May 8, according to Britain Elects, the UK’s largest poll aggregator.
The person said the subject was viewed within the Tory party as the only issue on which it can peel away Reform voters, given the Conservatives’ loss of credibility on immigration during their time in office, when net migration hit a record high of more than 900,000 people a year.
One shadow cabinet minister said it was imperative to accelerate the formulation of eye-catching economic policies after what Badenoch admitted was a Tory “bloodbath” at the polls on May 1.
A senior Tory peer said Badenoch and Mel Stride, shadow chancellor, should come forward rapidly with “totemic” policies that showed how they would help Britons with their household finances.
Some party figures believe Badenoch was too quick to “trash” the Conservative’s record on the economy and should have stressed their responsible approach to the public finances in difficult circumstances including the Covid-19 pandemic and Ukraine war.
In March she said the Tories had been ousted from office in part “because we forgot what we were about and opted for a technocratic managerialism” and argued the party needed to “remember the social value of business and enterprise”.
A spokesperson for Farage noted that a City AM poll by Freshwater Strategy showed that Reform UK was more trusted on the economy, with 25 points, than Labour and the Conservatives, with 20 and 19 points respectively.
He added: “We don’t make a habit out of responding to minor parties, but we won’t take lectures on economics from the same people who tripled the national debt in 14 years and introduced the highest tax burden since the second world war. The Conservative party should be in hiding over their economic record.”
