Badenoch's policy flop

With the Reform party at war with itself and Farage rowing back on the party’s hardline rhetoric on immigration, it would have been a politically astute move for Kemi Badenoch to assert her own position on the subject. In what has become a policy bidding war between the two parties, it has never been easier to match Reform on immigration issues.

Only Badenoch didn’t do that. She instead announced a policy reset speech, in which she focussed on Net Zero. She didn’t announce any new policy as such. She set out the policy direction and promised policy later. Again we are meant to go on vibes. There was nothing especially new in her rhetoric, and it wasn’t worth my time or hers.

What we needed to see was a commitment to row back on the whole agenda, but Badenoch thinks the problem is not the agenda itself, rather the unrealistic timeframe and the absence of a credible plan. She said “Net zero by 2050 is impossible. I don’t say that with pleasure, or because I have some ideological desire to dismantle it”.

That right there is the precise problem. She very much should have an ideological desire to dismantle it because it is an anti-growth agenda based on the flimsiest science. The whole thing is a utopian fantasy that will never work - on any timeframe.

At this point, we needed to hear concrete statements. She needed to say that the Climate Change Act would be repealed. She needed to say the Net Zero target would be completely abolished. She needed to call time on renewable energy and scrap the EV mandate. She needed to go to war with the green blob. But that was never going to happen, not least because many in her party are as deep in green blobbery as it gets, largely as a backup career plan.

As such, she is compromised by her own party. She said as much as she thought she could get away with - and fed us crumbs from the table. Tellingly, she uttered the words "I support the shift to renewables. They make energy cheaper and more secure". This is factually incorrect, and if she is not willing to make clear, unambiguous, truthful statements about the state of our energy system, then she is nowhere close to getting a grip on the issues - or her own party.

The speech was still something of an achievement though. It somehow managed to be worse than Richard Tices’s outing on Net Zero last month. We at least got four unambiguous measures from Tice (even if they were moronic). This was just extruded waffle.

Badenoch is starting to make a habit of this. She has announced three policy resets in recent times without providing any substance or saying anything new. Moreover, we have not seen any sign that the party is moving towards a more radical conservative platform. We’re not even being offered the bare minimum. The party’s offering on immigration is thin gruel when the bare minimum should be a commitment to reverse the Boriswave, not least by terminating Indefinite Leave to Remain.

With the Tory party sending clear signals that we should not expect a radical change of direction, and with Farage counter-signalling Rupert Lowe on immigration, there is still no coherent centre-right party, thus no real reason to go out and vote. Between Badenoch and Farage, they look to be handing Labour a second term on a plate.

Both parties arrogantly assumed that Labour would be universally incompetent, when Starmer may be finding his feet after all. He doesn’t have to be especially competent. He just has to do more than the Tories managed in the last five years, which is a pretty low bar. In making some timely cuts to welfare and abolishing NHS England, and with Wes Streeting turning out to be a reasonably effective health minister, Labour is more conservative than the Tory party has been since David Cameron.

It tends to be the case that the British electorate only sacks a sitting government if there is a viable alternative waiting in the wings. Neither the Tories or Reform are presenting as an alternative right now, and can barely motivate their own party bases. Reform seems hellbent on alienating its entire base. I bet Keir Starmer can hardly believe his luck. If another Labour victory is again contingent on voters staying at home, he could already have it in the bag.