Kemi Badenoch has until May 2026 to drastically improve the Conservatives’ performance in the polls or face pressure to step down, Tory frontbenchers have said as she marks 100 days as leader.
Concerns about her visibility and pace, low morale among party staff, and grumbles about the party’s fundraising prospects are among the setbacks that have marred the start of her tenure.
Despite facing an expected drubbing in local elections this spring, shadow ministers say the Tory party’s performance in council and devolved ballots next year will mark the first true test of Badenoch’s leadership.
“If we do really badly in the Scottish and Welsh elections then she will be at serious risk,” said one frontbencher, who predicted that the party could come fifth in either contest in a worst-case scenario.
The former business secretary seized the reins of the party last November after she comfortably beat Robert Jenrick following the party’s worst-ever rout at a general election in July.
Its slide in poll ratings since she took charge — from 26 per cent and ahead of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK to 22 per cent and third place after Labour — has sparked jitters among Tory MPs.
Staff at Reform — which now has more members than the Tories — taunted Badenoch on her 100-day anniversary as Tory leader on Monday by handing out booklets about her early “highlights” in post, which only contained blank pages.
Tory party officials are anticipating a difficult set of local elections on May 1, when they will be defending 991 council seats, the majority of those up for election.
They point out the last time these seats were contested was in 2021, when the Conservatives were enjoying a polling bounce from the successful Covid vaccine rollout and then-Tory prime minister Boris Johnson was in his pomp.
Several Conservative frontbenchers told the Financial Times that the real test for Badenoch’s leadership will come in May next year. Two said a significant improvement was needed for her to retain the party’s confidence.
If she fails, some MPs may even try to persuade Boris Johnson to return to the helm in order to save the party from an existential crisis, one said.
A former Tory adviser said: “I think Kemi is gone in 18 months, to be blunt. You need a crystallisation moment — it will be the Welsh elections and Scottish elections. That will be the beginning of the end for her.”
Yet the party’s recent defenestration of leaders — forcing Theresa May, Johnson and Liz Truss from the helm in the past six years — makes yet another regicide less likely. “We would look ridiculous to do it again,” said one Tory figure.
Last autumn, the party raised the threshold needed to trigger a “no confidence” vote in a leader from 15 per cent of MPs to 33 per cent.
A YouGov survey published on Monday showed that a majority of Tory voters, some 56 per cent, believe Badenoch is doing a good job so far. However, 48 per cent said she still does not look like a prime minister-in-waiting.
The pollster also found the wider public also said both Starmer and Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey would make a better prime minister than Badenoch, and placed Farage level with her.
Some of her backbenchers have been scathing about how few media appearances she has made compared with the Reform leader, and of her performance at Prime Minister’s Questions, although they believe she is improving with experience.
Relations with backbenchers is also sometimes strained: Her office only held its first drop in event for Tory MPs last week. Some shadow ministers and MPs want to see her step up her pace, and work faster to define the party’s direction.
However, Tory co-chair Nigel Huddleston warned turning around the party’s fortunes was a “marathon, not a sprint”. He praised her record of criticising Starmer’s Chagos Islands plan, calling for a national inquiry on the rape gangs scandal, and forcing Labour to reverse a key element of its education bill.
“Renewing the Conservative party will not be easy and cannot be rushed,” he wrote on the ConservativeHome grassroots website.
Her reluctance to agree policies that the party would run on in an election expected in 2029 — with the exception last week to call for new curbs on migrants gaining British nationality — has also been welcomed by Tory officials as sensible.
Yet insiders at the party’s headquarters say spirits are low following an exodus of senior staff after the election.
A significant proportion of shadow cabinet members are performing their duties without individual dedicated advisers, relying instead on party researchers or press officers.
A pep talk by Badenoch to CCHQ staff last week compounded the sense of dismay, after her calls for them to upgrade their operation was interpreted as a “bollocking” by people present. Some of those suspected she wanted to “drive people out” without having to pay them redundancy packages.
Badenoch defended her management style in the wake of the all-staff call, however, telling the BBC that it “isn’t just about telling everybody how great they are”.
Money worries still dog the party, even though it brought in £3.2mn in the third quarter of 2024 — more than the £2.6mn Labour raised or the £136,500 taken by Reform — and insiders say it raised even more in the fourth quarter.
Frontbenchers have been encouraged to fundraise themselves if they wish to pay for aides and for assistance to their policy work.
While Badenoch prides herself on being a straight-talking truth-teller, some Tory officials are concerned she and her allies lack the charm and solicitude required to court major donors.
One party treasurer of around 15 years’ standing who says they have brought in millions of pounds in donations from other donors said their letter of congratulations to her was never answered.
“I’ve hosted events — breakfasts, dinners, lunches,” said the person. “I’ve done my job. But no one has reached out [since Badenoch took over].” They now consider themselves an “ex-treasurer”.
One ally of Badenoch disputed the account, saying: “This absolutely cannot be true. We have made sure anyone who has made a significant donation in the past few years has received correspondence from Kemi.”
One shadow cabinet minister said Rishi Sunak, rather than Badenoch, was to blame for the state of the party finances and low morale.
“She inherited a very bad legacy from Rishi. CCHQ is a party asset that needs to be handed down from leader to leader in a fit state. We knew that defeat was highly likely in the election, but there was no sense he was planning for the future.”
Sunak’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
A Tory spokesperson said: “Renewal is a long-term project and there will be bumps in the road with very difficult local elections in May, but Kemi has a mandate to renew our party from top to bottom to start to win back the trust of the British people after our historic defeat.”
