{"id":7075312,"date":"2026-10-04T06:33:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T06:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7075312"},"modified":"2026-10-04T06:33:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T06:33:17","slug":"party-conference-will-be-more-upbeat-than-last-year-tories-say-but-thats-not-the-whole-story-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7075312","title":{"rendered":"Party conference will be more upbeat than last year, Tories say \u2013 but that\u2019s not the whole story | Conservatives"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The forthcoming Conservative conference<\/a> will be, almost everyone in the party agrees, notably more upbeat and unified than last year. There is a similar consensus that Kemi Badenoch is doing well as party leader. That is, however, not the whole story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mood is better but the facts are still very poor,\u201d one Conservative MP said. \u201cWe are still a distant third in the polls, and if there was an election tomorrow we would lose, and badly. That means the mood is overhyped.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the inescapable shadow over the Tory gathering in Birmingham, which begins on Sunday. Almost two years since Badenoch was elected leader<\/a>, her party is still polling lower than it did in 2024, when it suffered a catastrophically poor election result.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, context behind her MPs\u2019 patience, not least the fracturing of the political landscape and the rise of a new competitor on the right in Reform UK.<\/p>\n

But while Badenoch\u2019s future is secure for now, there is concern among some Tories that her dogged focus<\/a> on winning back support from Nigel Farage\u2019s party, with little on offer to more centrist voters, poses both political and reputational risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be attracting as many voters who left us for the Lib Dems as Reform, and I don\u2019t personally think we have got the balance right,\u201d a shadow minister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an economic offering, but they don\u2019t want us to be so intolerant on social issues. The way we are going, we risk being seen as the nasty party again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201cnasty party\u201d was coined by Theresa May in 2002, when the then party chair warned activists<\/a> against focusing on too narrow a voter base and targeting other parts of society with punitive policies.<\/p>\n

Even if Badenoch has learned to prioritise core policy and walk away from culture war arguments, it seems she has not fully absorbed May\u2019s lessons about not punching down.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the Tories have pledged to bar non-Britons<\/a> from social housing, strip UK citizenship<\/a> from dual nationals convicted of serious crimes, and cut some benefits payments to a \u201csubsistence\u201d level<\/a>, with restrictions preventing the money being used to buy alcohol or tobacco.<\/p>\n

The main pre-conference policy offering was in a similar vein: a pledge to slash overseas aid to pay for 50,000 new prison places.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of Conservative MPs who don\u2019t view this as a problem. \u201cI\u2019ve not heard any colleagues say they were worried about the nasty party stuff,\u201d one said. \u201cIn contrast, a lot of constituents say they are very worried about welfare costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the paradoxes of Badenoch\u2019s tenure is the relative lack of open dissent, even on totemic ideas such as the commitment to leave<\/a> the European convention on human rights (ECHR) to enact more rigorous deportation policies.<\/p>\n

This is, in part, because many of her MPs respect the way Badenoch has taken time over decisions and sought to make her case, with the ECHR plan prefaced by a 185-page report by David Wolfson, the shadow attorney general.<\/p>\n

But its is also a function of the apparent lack of appetite for a fight from centrist Conservatives such as the One Nation group, most of whom are either outside parliament, lying low on the backbenches or co-opted into the Badenoch project, as with Tom Tugendhat, made shadow foreign secretary in a recent mini-reshuffle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about the One Nation group is that we never actually did anything,\u201d one centrist MP said. \u201cWe got together and metaphorically held hands from time to time, but that was about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither way, everybody seems to be pulling together now. It\u2019s not quite yet the Blues Brothers on a mission from God<\/a>, but there\u2019s a real sense of purpose. There are no factions, no five families<\/a>. The arguments have stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

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