At an opulent speakeasy-style event at the Raffles hotel on Whitehall this week, the great and the good of what is left of the Conservative party marked the Spectator’s parliamentarian of the year awards.
With the magazine’s editorial line still just about backing the Tories, despite the party facing an existential crisis from Reform UK, it was unsurprising that much of the gossip at the champagne-fuelled event was about whether Kemi Badenoch’s job was at risk.
James Cleverly, who unsuccessfully ran against her for the leadership, couldn’t resist a dig from the stage at the naked ambition of his shadow cabinet colleague, Robert Jenrick – who is Badenoch’s biggest threat.
“Am I after her job? Am I going to stick the knife between her shoulder blades and steal the crown? No, of course I’m not,” the veteran Tory cabinet minister told the laughing audience as he opened the awards ceremony.
“You know that I’m not. Have I had a snazzy new haircut and lost loads of puppy fat? No. Have I stopped saying ‘aask’ and started saying ‘assk’? Am I producing viral vigilante videos? If I was, maybe you would suspect I’m on manoeuvres.”
James Cleverly, who came third in last year’s leadership contest, is cited as a potentially unifying party figure, and has been keeping his powder dry. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Jenrick, who came second to Badenoch last year and has been pitching alarmingly to the right to take on Nigel Farage, did at least manage to chuckle. His own manoeuvres have been anything but subtle.
Earlier this year one of the Tory leader’s disgruntled backbenchers set up a countdown clock on social media of the days left until Conservative rules allow rivals to mount a challenge. That clock reaches zero on Sunday.
At that point, the Tory leader’s critics will be able to submit letters to trigger a contest. The rules changed last year to increase the threshold, meaning 30% of the party’s 119 MPs are now needed, up from 15%, creating a higher bar for those trying to oust her.
But could any putative rivals – Jenrick foremost among them – persuade the 36 MPs required to start the process? Tory insiders point to the numbers who nominated him in the leadership contest: 28 in the first round. “That’s your starting point,” they said.
There is no shortage of Tory MPs willing to share their frustrations about Badenoch: her style, her political judgment, her ability to cut through. But, for the most part, they remain cautious about committing yet another act of political regicide so soon.
Some Conservative MPs also believe her performance at the autumn party conference, announcing a policy of abolishing stamp duty on primary homes, has bought her a few months of breathing space.
“We might not be happy with Kemi’s leadership but we’ll be very careful about getting rid of her. The public already think we fight like rats in a sack. We don’t need to give them any more evidence of that,” one MP said.
That is not to say the plotting is not under way. “Kemi has until May. The local elections are going to be cataclysmic for us. Nobody is going to want to take over before that and have to own the result. But afterwards, we will need somebody who can take us in a new direction,” one shadow cabinet minister said.
Graph showing Badenoch’s net favourability rating
If May brings a Tory council wipeout, MPs will start to get nervous about their own prospects. Robert Hayward, the Conservative peer and polling expert, said “there is no doubt the legacy parties are dreading next May” and the Conservatives were still “getting mullered” in many council byelections, although they seem to be holding on to a few more seats than before over the last few weeks.
The polls already suggest Badenoch has made little progress with the public over the last year and that she has fallen in terms of her personal ratings. At -22 points, she is less popular than Jenrick (-16) and Mel Stride (-21), according to Ipsos Mori.
The pollster’s latest favourability score for the Tories is -28 points, with 22% being favourable to them and 50% unfavourable.
Data from YouGov also shows that Badenoch has convinced only 12% of Britons she is a prime minister in waiting. However, the picture is better among Conservative voters, with 54% saying she has done a good job as party leader, and only 30% saying she should not lead the party into the next general election.
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But while Tory supporters are ambivalent, there appears to be a consensus among the MPs that Badenoch will not be the one to lead the party into the next election.
Graph showing The Tory paarty’s net favourability rating
The main division is whether it would better to replace her in May and have a chance at stopping Reform’s momentum – or leave it until closer to the general election when Farage might have imploded, and voters could be more willing to listen to the Tories again.
It is no secret that Jenrick thinks he is the man for the job. But his allies say he has no plans to move now, and is among those who thinks they should wait until May.
They also think that, having been “radicalised” on immigration during his time at the Home Office, he is the only one who can win back support from Reform UK. His team have been doing research on Farage’s weaknesses and what might persuade different voting blocs to return to the Tories.
It is no secret that Robert Jenrick thinks he is the man for the job. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Controversially for many Tories, however, Jenrick is among those who believes some sort of deal needs to be done with Reform UK to avoid electoral oblivion. “We’re not sure what that looks like, because Reform wouldn’t want to talk about it publicly, but they may need our experience,” one ally said.
There is also a theory that the party’s potential saviour may end up being somebody with a lower profile (the shadow climate secretary Claire Coutinho gets mentioned) or a member of the new intake with less obvious links to the party’s time in power.
Cleverly, who came third in last year’s contest, is also cited as a potentially unifying figure, and has been keeping his powder dry. His allies say he thinks there is no alternative but to carry on with Badenoch as leader, as anybody taking over now would inherit an even more difficult situation.
However, if a contest were to be triggered, there would undoubtedly be those urging Cleverly to stand, and he may be persuadable to give it another shot. A small group of centrist MPs are already preparing a rearguard action to prevent Jenrick from being crowned leader in any eventual contest.
A well-connected Tory cautioned that the “energy is all on the right” both inside and outside the Conservative party, citing figures such as Jenrick, Neil O’Brien, Katie Lam and Nick Timothy. “It is a chance for James [Cleverly] as he has the stature and the relationship with members, and some want to stop Robert at any costs.”
“Quite a lot of minds are on the need for a pact or coalition with Reform at some stage. During the votes on assisted suicide and decriminalising abortion there was a lot of ‘we need to kick the people who voted for those out the party’ and Reform’s private messaging is ‘you’ve got some Lib Dems you’d have to get rid of’. That tips things in Robert’s favour a bit.”
However, another added: “Jenrick winning is not a foregone conclusion. We could have a strong competition between Jenrick and another – Cleverly, Stride. The idea that the rightwing candidate always wins the membership is not necessarily the case.”
