Analysis: Kemi Badenoch chooses to take fight to Reform from Conservative conference

Kemi Badenoch is hoping that a message about economic competence can lure back in some former Tory supporters who moved to Reform.

Kemi Badenoch directly took on Reform in a bold attempt to woo back former Tories by attacking Nigel Farage while setting out a raft of tax cuts.

The Conservative leader closed the party’s conference today/yesterday with a speech of over an hour that included a major announcement on inheritance tax.

But the most powerful part of Mrs Badenoch’s speech was the section in which she took on former Tory MP Suella Braverman and her comments about Englishness.

Ms Braverman, who defected to Reform, sparked a row over racism when she suggested on the BBC’s Question Time programme that non-white people born in the UK could be British, but not English.

Addressing the conference in Birmingham, Mrs Badenoch said: “I don’t want to live in a country run by people who threaten journalists … and debate whether my mixed-race children are English.

“I don’t want to explain to my son when we’re watching our brilliant England team play football that some people don’t think our black players are English.

“I remember back in the day when Ian Wright and John Barnes were playing, nobody was questioning whether they were English.

“We certainly didn’t have sitting MPs questioning whether they were English – we must not let these people take us backwards, that is not the country we are.”

These quite strident attacks on Reform were a theme of the entire conference.

At an event on economic growth in the North East and Yorkshire, Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen’s first point was the damage, he said, Reform councillors are doing to areas.

But what Mrs Badenoch’s speech and others made clear is that the Tories are directly targeting Reform voters.

In the shift to the right on immigration and Europe, it appears unlikely that they will be winning back lots of seats from the Lib Dems in the more liberal southern shires.

But they’ll be hoping that a message about economic competence can lure back in some former Tory supporters who moved to Reform.

Luke Tryl, the UK director of More In Common, said: “I think that’s the toughest I’ve seen a Tory leader been on Reform since their emergence as a serious political force, directly taking on claims about Englishness and identity from some Reform politicians.

“It feels a significant change in approach. We know there are a group of newer Reform voters who are attracted to Nigel Farage and who are willing to roll the dice on something different, but who recoil from what they see as too extreme.

“Recent suggestions about [the] Englishness of [the] English football team fall into that category.”

During her speech Mrs Badenoch made a direct pitch to these voters.

She said: “Many of them are our people. We let them down and we want them to come back home. They deserve better than Reform politicians.”

However, winning back voters that felt betrayed by the previous Tory governments is easier said than done.

There’s a reason why the party’s popularity remains far behind Mrs Badenoch.

She will hope that in the coming months that gap starts to narrow.