The Conservative party is far from the margin of British politics, but it has yet to recover the relevance to which it feels historically entitled. The Tories are flattered by their status as the official opposition in parliament. In the wider country, Reform UK has set the agenda on the right, overtaking Kemi Badenoch’s party in opinion polls and poaching MPs from her benches.
But Nigel Farage’s progress has stalled. Scrutiny of Reform’s finances has made its leader look shifty. Competition from Restore Britain, an extreme nationalist party, has denied Mr Farage the luxury of taking far-right votes for granted.
Pandering to a hardcore audience makes it difficult for Reform to affect the moderation required to capture more Tory and Labour votes. This creates an opportunity for Conservatives to reassert themselves as the mainstream opposition to Labour. Many Tories believe the available space has grown since Andy Burnham replaced Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister.
Mr Burnham has a bolder agenda than his predecessor, and he communicates it well – qualities that have been rewarded with a poll-ratings recovery. It is also a programme with unapologetic left-liberal ambition – universal social care, free at the point of use; opening the door to public ownership of utilities; dissolving red lines in relations with the EU; electoral reform. Under new leadership, the party has risen out of the defensive crouch from which it fought the election, fearful of offending Conservative sensibilities.
Conservatives are duly offended. The vision that Mr Burnham outlined at his party conference last week was a repudiation of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy, and there is no greater heresy in Tory doctrine. Mrs Badenoch will not struggle to articulate a rebuttal at her party’s conference in Birmingham over the next few days.
She is a devotee of the Conservative cult of the Iron Lady, committed to low taxes and a smaller state as axioms of political virtue. She believes there are voters who share that conviction, who will be repelled by Labour, and who are deeply wary of Mr Farage. This is the electoral audience she is targeting.
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