The Conservatives May Be United Behind Badenoch — But Unity Is Not the Same as Winning Back Voters

It is Kemi Badenoch's Conservative Party now.

That was the clearest message from the Conservatives' conference in Birmingham.

The internal uncertainty that surrounded her leadership a year ago has largely disappeared. There is no obvious public challenge to her position, and the party appears considerably more united behind its leader.

For Badenoch, that is an important change.

But there is a problem party unity cannot solve on its own:

The Conservatives still have to win back voters.

Badenoch has consolidated her position

The turning point came at last year's conference.

With speculation that Robert Jenrick could challenge her leadership, Badenoch delivered a confident speech that rallied the party behind her.

A year later, Jenrick has left for Reform UK, as has former Conservative minister Suella Braverman.

Badenoch can therefore present herself as leading a party with fewer internal distractions.

Her latest conference speech reinforced that message.

It was confident, combative and designed to demonstrate that the Conservatives have moved beyond the divisions that dominated the party after its general election defeat.

But unity is a means to an end.

The Conservatives ultimately need voters to believe they offer a credible alternative government.

The politics of inheritance tax

Badenoch's inheritance tax announcement provided the conference with its headline policy.

It also demonstrated something important about Conservative politics.

Inheritance tax is paid by fewer than one in 20 estates, yet it generates a disproportionately strong political reaction.

Part of the reason is aspiration.

People who will never currently pay the tax may nevertheless imagine a future in which their family does.

Conservatives have long argued that it represents taxation of wealth that has already been accumulated from taxed income.

Opponents see a different picture, arguing that changes would primarily benefit wealthy families.

Reform UK has attacked the proposal as a tax cut for multi-millionaires while promoting an alternative based on raising the income-tax threshold.

That creates the political test for Badenoch.

Can the Conservatives turn an unpopular tax into a policy that reaches beyond their traditional supporters?

The Reform problem

The most striking feature of Badenoch's conference rhetoric was arguably not inheritance tax.

It was Reform UK.

Badenoch has made clear that she does not want a deal with Nigel Farage's party.

Her message is increasingly that the Conservatives must defeat Reform politically rather than accommodate it.

But there is an interesting tension here.

Badenoch's attacks have often concentrated on the character and judgement of Reform figures rather than simply challenging Reform's most popular policies.

Her intervention over English identity was a good example.

Braverman recently argued that Englishness is an ethnicity and said she did not regard herself as English despite being proud to be British.

Badenoch reacted angrily, drawing on her own experience as the mother of mixed-race children and arguing that black England footballers should not have their English identity questioned.

It was a clear political dividing line.

But it also raises the question of whether attacking Reform's rhetoric is enough.

Reform's appeal is built around issues including immigration, taxation, crime and the size and role of the state.

The Conservatives need to explain not simply why they oppose Reform, but why voters who have moved towards Reform should return to the Conservative Party.

Polling is shaping the strategy

This is where the Conservatives' polling position becomes strategically important.

The party's problem is not simply that it remains behind where it wants to be. It is competing for political space on two fronts: Reform is challenging it on the right, while the Liberal Democrats have taken support from Conservatives in parts of southern England.

That helps explain the breadth of Badenoch's strategy.

The Conservatives need to make themselves sufficiently distinctive to win back voters who have moved to Reform, while remaining sufficiently credible on the economy, public services and taxation to recover voters who have moved elsewhere.

Their stated ambition of catching Reform in the polls is therefore more than a numerical target. It is about establishing the Conservatives as the principal alternative to Labour and changing the argument about which opposition party can realistically form a government.

That is why conference policies matter.

Inheritance tax, economic growth, public services, crime and immigration are not isolated announcements. They are attempts to build a coalition across different groups of voters.

The polling provides the test: can those policies actually broaden Conservative support rather than simply strengthen the existing party base?

The Conservative strategy is broader than Reform

That is why Badenoch's economic message matters.

Rather than allowing Reform to dominate her speech, she framed the wider political contest as one between Labour and the Conservatives over economic growth and trust.

This is strategically important.

The Conservatives cannot simply define themselves against Reform.

They need to become a credible alternative to Labour.

That means convincing voters that they can deliver economic growth, manage public finances and address public services.

It also means persuading voters who have previously supported other parties that the Conservatives are relevant to them again.

The voters the Conservatives need

The party appears to see opportunities among voters who have moved away from it in different directions.

In southern England, the Conservatives have lost support to the Liberal Democrats.

Policies around childcare costs, council tax and inheritance tax could be part of an attempt to rebuild that coalition.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the Conservatives are competing with Reform for voters who want tougher policies on immigration, crime and national identity.

That leaves Badenoch with a difficult political balancing act.

Move too far towards Reform and she risks allowing Farage's party to define the political debate.

Move too far towards the centre and she risks losing voters who have already abandoned the Conservatives for Reform.

The answer, from Badenoch's conference performance, appears to be an attempt to establish a distinctly Conservative alternative.

Whether that works is for voters to decide.

Unity is not popularity

This is perhaps the most important distinction coming out of Birmingham.

The Conservatives look more united.

They appear more confident.

Badenoch has consolidated her leadership.

But none of those things automatically translates into electoral support.

The party remains well below the level of popularity it would need to return to government.

Its relative position may have improved compared with its lowest points, but that is not the same as having recovered from the scale of its 2024 defeat.

Badenoch knows this.

The political challenge now is to turn internal confidence into public confidence.

A battle for political space

There is another reason the next few months will be important.

Reform UK has experienced a difficult period, while Labour is attempting to appeal to voters on its left, including those who might otherwise support the Greens or Liberal Democrats.

The Conservatives therefore see potential gaps in the political market.

Their calculation is straightforward:

If they can attract enough voters from Reform, the Liberal Democrats and elsewhere, they can begin rebuilding a coalition capable of challenging Labour.

But that requires more than identifying gaps.

They have to fill them with policies that voters actually want.

The Real Terryo view

Badenoch leaves conference with something politically valuable: a Conservative Party that appears more settled behind her leadership.

That matters.

But the difficult part begins outside the conference hall.

The Conservatives need to persuade voters who rejected them in 2024 that they have something different to offer.

They need to compete with Reform without allowing Reform to dictate their agenda.

They need to challenge Labour on the economy and public services.

And they need to broaden their appeal without losing the voters who still form the party's core support.

The Conservatives may now be united behind Kemi Badenoch.

The polling strategy shows what comes next: turn that unity into a broader coalition of voters.

And that is a contest no party conference can settle.