'It's A Case Of When, Not If': Tory MPs Believe Kemi Badenoch's Time As Party Leader Is Already Running Out

Kemi Badenoch has been Tory leader for barely six months.The Tory MP was in despair.“She seems to be getting worse, not better. I’m sad to say that,” the veteran backbencher told HuffPost UK when asked to sum up Kemi Badenoch’s performance as his party’s leader.Barely six months into the job, Conservatives are already speculating about how long Badenoch has left.The local elections on May 1, when the Tories lost more than 670 councillors and Reform UK gained an almost identical number, seems to have been a tipping point for many.“Everybody expected them to be bad, but they were significantly worse than than I and a lot of colleagues expected, which is a big problem,” one former minister said.The opinion polls have also turned against the Tories since the local elections. Whereas before they were neck-and-neck with both Reform and Labour, they are now firmly in third – and sometimes even fourth – place.As a result, ever-ruthless members of the parliamentary Conservative Party are sharpening their knives.“I always thought she would go in June or July next year after bad results in the Scottish, Welsh and council elections in May,” said one. “But now I think it’s 50-50 whether she even survives until then.“I don’t see a strong appetite to move against her now, but desperate folks do desperate things.”One of the main criticisms of Badenoch from her colleagues is her lack of “visibility” around parliament and the country at large.Politics is a game where personal relationships and the ability to form alliances matters, but Conservative MPs fear their leader has little interest in either.“You don’t see her much around the Commons or on the TV,” one MP told HuffPost UK.“If I was in her office, I’d be telling her to be out doing visits across the country every weekend. She would be cut a lot more slack if she was seen to be putting in a shift.”Another insider said: “She’s never around Portcullis House hosting lunches, drinks or pizza gatherings for groups of MPs. She’s never been user friendly, but that’s even more evident now.”Concerns about Badenoch’s work ethic were not helped by the fact that while parliament was in recess last week, she reportedly took a family holiday in Ibiza.At the same time, both Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer made speeches attacking one another – once again highlighting the fact that, currently, the Conservatives are an irrelevance at Westminster.Badenoch herself does not appear to be panicking, however, insisting that, in the wake of last year’s general election disaster, reviving her party’s fortunes is a “slow and steady” process.New policies will not emerge for at least another 12 months, if not longer, Badenoch has said. For MPs nervously eyeing their majorities, that is simply not good enough.One MP said: “I don’t think now is the time for policy, but we do need to know what is Kemi’s vision of conservatism?“Her lack of vision, lack of visibility and the apparent lack of hard work is a problem.”Badenoch’s apparent absence from the thick of the action is emphasised by the hyperactivity of shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, who she beat to the leadership last November.He briefly managed to grab the political agenda for the Tories on Thursday by posting a video in which he could be seen haranguing fare-dodgers on the London Underground.Although mocked in some quarters, it went down well with Tory colleagues desperate to see one of their own making the news for a change.“In defence of Rob, all the shadow cabinet should be out doing stuff like that,” an MP said. “There are questions to be asked about how a lot of them are peforming, but the ultimate responsibility for that lies with Kemi.”While many MPs are concerned that Badenoch is not doing enough, others are highly critical of the actions she has taken since succeeding Rishi Sunak as leader.“On the US, India and even the EU trade deal, she could not bring herself to admit some parts of each one were good,” one backbencher told HuffPost UK.“Criticise and challenge yes, but just rubbishing everything the government does is not a strategy.” Her lack of vision, lack of visibility and the apparent lack of hard work is a problem MPs also believe that the team around Badenoch is not good enough either.One said: “The lack of experience in her private office, which is full of failed MPs and failed special advisers, especially those connected to Michael Gove and Rishi, is a guarantee of just another repeat of the same failure.”One thing in Badenoch’s favour is the fact that, under Tory party rules, she cannot face a vote of no confidence until November, when she will have been in the job for a year.There is a growing belief, however, that this only gives her a stay of execution.“She’s good, but in times like these she needs to be exceptional, and sadly she isn’t,” lamented a Conservative MP.“If you pushed me, I think she is helped by Tory weariness at the number of leadership elections we’ve had in recent years, so she’ll probably last until next year. But it’s definitely a case of when, not if, she goes.”Dominic Cummings, a man who knows a thing or two about getting rid of Tory leaders, this week gave a three-word assessment of her chances of survival: “She’s a goner.”The Tories’ political rivals, meanwhile, are already preparing for a future in which the party itself may not even exist.“I am a believer that Reform will eat the Tories alive,” one No.10 aide told HuffPost UK. “They have been on this weird path for a few years – what is the point of them now? “What is it that the Tories are doing to win back the voters they’ve lost? For large parts of the country, voting Conservative used to be the standard thing to do because they were seen as the ‘normal’ party.“But they smashed that with Brexit, which lost them their liberal voters, and then they followed that up with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. “Labour is now the normal party, the party of fiscal discipline. So if you’ve got us, the Lib Dems and Reform now, what are the Tories actually offering to voters? I’m not saying they’re dead forever, but they’re certainly in danger of it.”For a growing number of Conservative MPs, the party’s first step back to credibility is to once again change their leader. Time is already running out for Kemi Badenoch.Related...'She's A Goner': Dominic Cummings Says Kemi Badenoch Will 'Probably' Be Ousted This YearTrevor Phillips Gives Kemi Badenoch 1 Brutal Reality Check Over Tories' Popularity Right Now'Nobody Cares!' Kemi Badenoch Rejects Criticism Over Her Latest Performance In The Commons

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