In a year with few big moments fixed in the political diary the existential fight on the right between the Conservative Party and Reform UK will likely be the defining contest of 2025.
Farage crowed that the “youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world”. Badenoch took the bait firing back hours later with a 300-word, five-thread post on X that: “It’s not real” and that Farage “doesn’t understand the digital age”.
Farage v Badenoch will be the match to watch in the coming year. Farage is pitching himself as David against the Goliath of the Conservative Party but in truth he is a wily old pro taking on a naïve newbie, who is impulsively making beginner’s mistakes.
She claims to be “sick or the endless lies, smoke and mirrors, stuff and nonsense politics”.
Unlike the Labour leader, Badenoch cannot ignore taunts. She boasts about being an “engineer” who ponders everything carefully before coming up with an answer but seems to hit back blindly.
At Prime Minister’s Questions the new leader of the opposition wades in fists flying with stylishly crafted punches at the Government’s current problems. Starmer ignores her jibes and lies back on the ropes, before striking back with relish at the record of the recent Tory governments, to which she belonged, and which were comprehensively knocked out at the last election.
Farage and Reform were actively still pulling off a classic social media stunt, complete with “Merry Christmas @KemiBadenoch” hashtags and membership figures projected onto Conservative headquarters, when she hit back, accusing them of misunderstanding digital and being behind the times “copying the fake Tony Blair/Campbell spin book”.
Farage is able to play the affronted party, offering to open up Reform’s membership books to independent auditing provided the Conservatives do the same, something both Labour and the Conservatives have long been shy of. Badenoch now claims “the Conservative party has put on thousands of new members since the leadership election” but she has yet to publish the evidence or promise to do so.
Badenoch, on the other hand, delivered a speech in Washington DC earlier this month denouncing the prevalence of “woke”, “leftist” ideology but has a habit of backing off in practice – perhaps wisely. She disowned her own comments about over generous maternity support. She served in a government which oversaw record immigration and, as business secretary she declined to ignite a bonfire of all EU regulations.
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Read MoreParty membership numbers may not matter that much either. The days are long gone when official supporters were measured in millions. Jeremy Corbyn held the recent record with over half a million Labour members and still lost two elections. Badenoch has drawn attention to the Conservatives’ parlous state and near parity with Reform UK.
Reform UK are not yet “the real opposition”, as Farage claims. The coming year’s local elections look precarious for the Conservatives and Badenoch. In sagacious mode she says she has no plans to bribe the voters, offering instead “hard, unvarnished truths. Many of those truths will be hard for my party and the country.”
This May the Conservatives will be defending a high water mark performance from 2021, the last time these English council were contested. Reform UK was not around then, and its predecessors Ukip and Brexit were resting. Reform will be starting from zero meaning any seats they win will be vaunted as straight victories by a new party on the march.
Adam Boulton presents Sunday Morning on Times Radio
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