Kemi Badenoch faces D-day as Reform UK defection fears soar

The pall of tragedy hangs over Manchester following the barbaric synagogue slaughter by an Islamic terrorist in which two Jewish people died. It is a horror that the city, already scarred by senseless acts of terrorism in the past, will never forget.

As it reels from yet more savagery, the capital of the north finds itself in the unwanted position of being the focal point of a rising tide of anti-semitism in the UK. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is under intense pressure to do much more to protect the UK’s Jewish community, has already visited the scene of the attack. And Kemi Badenoch will pay her own respects today on her way to the Conservative party conference which kicks off in Manchester tomorrow.

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The four-day event is likely to be somewhat overshadowed by Thursday’s sickening attack.

But it comes at a time when patriotism in Britain is on the rise and the debate over religion, racism and free speech is white hot.

Badenoch will not shy away from one of the biggest and most toxic challenges of our time when she arrives in the historic industrial powerhouse.

What she may well be facing is D-Day.

The Conservative leader is hoping to use her party’s annual conference as the launchpad for one of the great political fightbacks.

Will it be the moment where she drags the party from the wreckage of two brutal elections and masterminds a major comeback.

Or will she be torpedoed by another, and potentially high-profile, defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK?

Most people are expecting Farage to detonate the D-bomb with names like Jacob Rees Mogg, Lord David Frost and Miriam Cates doing the Westminster gossip rounds.

The thousands of activists, lobbyists and journalists arriving in Manchester over the weekend will soon know the answer.

It is Badenoch’s first conference as party leader and she needs to make a big impression.

Since she won the race to replace Rishi Sunak almost 12 months ago the Conservatives have slumped further behind in the polls.

They are trailing Reform by around 15%, Labour by 4% and are even flirting with being overtaken by the Lib Dems for third place.

Major policies have been thin on the ground during 11 months in which the Tory leader has been trumped on a number of occasions by Farage.

It is no wonder there are rumblings of a leadership coup.

This year’s conference slogan is “Stronger economy, stronger borders”, what the party leader regards as the two problems of our age - stagnant growth and global mass migration.

Perhaps another slogan, in the minds of some members at least, is “stick or twist”.

Stick with Badenoch or do that very Tory thing and change to someone else. She is already their fourth leader this decade.

But scratch beneath the surface and there is some cause for optimism for Tory supporters that the tide could be about to turn.

Badenoch has made no secret of the fact that she needed to clear the decks after the tumultuous previous few years for her party.

In pre-conference interviews she has said she inherited a “distressed asset” and that her first job was to “just make sure we didn’t go bust”.

But that is about to change with a slew of policy announcements planned in Manchester.

And that starts with an issue which dominated Labour’s conference last week - migration.

To curb migration, Badenoch is expected to announce tomorrow how the Tories would exit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

She will take the unusual, but not unprecedented move of, making a specific speech on that issue, just as Theresa May did on Brexit in 2016, ahead of her main address on Tuesday.

Badenoch gathered her shadow cabinet yesterday to walk them through the planned ECHR announcement, which boils down to leave, not remain.

A lot of this year’s conference will also be focused on the economy.

The Conservatives will attack both Labour and Reform for wanting to borrow and spend too much, putting the public finances at risk.

Badenoch also has her own plan for growth, namely, stopping deindustrialisation, which she says is killing the country.

The economy is Terra firma for the Tories, especially with Rachel Reeves making such a horlicks of things for the government.

The Chancellor has all but confirmed that taxes will be hiked when she delivers her Budget on November 26.

Expect the Tory leader and shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride, who has his own keynote speech on Monday, to make hay with this.

One subject in which Badenoch has seized the initiative is the green agenda.

She has already committed to abolishing the Climate Change Act 2008 which mandates targets to hit net zero by 2050, which the Tory leader says leads to higher costs.

Labour’s failure to make the most of Britain’s own energy assets such as North Sea oil and gas is another subject we can expect the Tories to trumpet.

It is an issue she discussed with Donald Trump, who publicly urged Sir Keir Starmer to exploit the North Sea, at the recent state dinner at Windsor Castle.

This ties into the economy again with the Conservative leader keen to make the case for boosting our own domestic energy supply to fuel the growth the country needs.

Expect to hear lots about protecting the British farming industry too after the government clobbered farms with a savage inheritance tax rise last year.

Another area in which the Tories have been quiet since Badenoch took the helm is controversies - no bad thing for a party which was embroiled in scandals in the not-too-distant past.

She has, however, insisted this year’s jamboree will be fun and lively.

Open debates between party members on the stage will enable people to speak freely.

But despite the relatively calm waters within the Tory party one man’s name always appears on the rumour mill when it comes to challenging for the party leadership - Robert Jenrick.

The shadow justice secretary narrowly lost out, along with James Cleverly, to Badenoch for the top job last time around.

Many joke that his leadership campaign has never stopped.

Just last week Jenrick, a cheerleader for leaving the ECHR, said the Conservative Party “hasn’t changed enough” since its wipeout at the general election.

He said the party had to transform “if it is going to survive” in what appeared to be a warning to Badenoch that the Conservatives needed to be more radical in their approach to recovery.

A continuous drip, drip of defections from the Tory party to Reform UK during the past 12 months has added to the feeling of malaise within the party.

On the surface many Conservatives are supporting their leader.

One veteran Tory MP told the Daily Express: “I’m very fond of Kemi, what she stands for and what she is doing in very, very difficult circumstances.

“But if we are to stand a chance we need to step things up now, we have to make more of an impact.”

The spectre of defections is never far away with the past 12 months seeing a drip, drip Tories joining Reform UK.

East Wiltshire MP Danny Kruger and former minister Sarah Atherton were the latest to jump ship.

The biggest blow was the departure of Kruger, a serving shadow minister, who declared the Tories were “over”.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who sits on the influential 1922 committee, recently said that there isn’t “a level of dissatisfaction that would warrant” a leadership challenge.

“I think we’ve really got to wait and see, give her a little bit more space, give her a little bit of airtime over the party conference and see how that all shakes out.”

He added that she has “got a lot of what it takes”, describing her as “brave”, bright and “gutsy”.

The synagogue tragedy aside, morale appears to be somewhat upbeat among Tory troops.

Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said: “With thousands of members attending, hundreds of businesses involved, and a packed main stage and fringe agenda, this is shaping up to be one of our strongest conferences yet.

“This year’s Conference marks a turning point where we will set out bold, ambitious policies to deliver a stronger economy and stronger borders.

“I look forward to welcoming everyone to Manchester on Sunday.”