At a Glance
- The Conservatives leave Birmingham more confident and with a clearer strategy, though sustained electoral recovery remains far from assured.
- Party leader Kemi Badenoch positioned Conservatives as the right-wing party capable of governing, shifting its fight with Reform toward economic competence.
- A clearer economic agenda is emerging around growth, lower taxes, a smaller state and deregulation, backed by new tax and welfare commitments.
- The electoral strategy increasingly centers on aspirational voters, rebuilding the Party’s association with work, enterprise, home ownership and wealth creation.
- For business, these ideas could shape both the next Conservative manifesto and wider debate on tax, regulation, welfare, energy and planning.
Last year’s Conservative Party Conference was dominated by an existential question: could the Party survive the rise of Reform and once again become a credible contender for government?
Twelve months on, those questions have not gone away. The Party remains some way from where it needs to be, and the threat from Reform remains very real. But there is a growing sense within the Conservatives that, over the past year, they have stopped the slide. Party leader Kemi Badenoch’s speech in Manchester and her subsequent response to the Budget helped stabilize her leadership, while her speech in Birmingham has gone down well with those we have spoken to in its immediate aftermath. The result is a Party that feels it is in a stronger position to take the fight to both Labour and Reform.
Badenoch herself sought to draw the contrast. Last year, she argued, the Conservatives showed that the Party was back. This year, they had shown that they were the only party with the “team and the plan to get Britain working again.”
That growing confidence was evident throughout her speech. But Badenoch’s central message was also deliberately combative: a fight is coming. She described the political contest ahead as a “battle for the soul of this nation,” drawing a dividing line between a Labour Party that, she argues, believes government has the answers and a Conservative Party which believes individuals, families, and businesses should keep more of what they earn and have greater control over their own lives.
The change in conference slogan helps explain the terrain on which Badenoch wants to fight that battle. Last year it was “Stronger economy, stronger borders.” This year it is “Stronger economy, stronger country.” The difference might appear semantic, but it points towards a significant change in electoral strategy. Borders have not disappeared from the Conservative agenda, but the Party increasingly believes its route back to power depends first and foremost on rebuilding its reputation as the party of economic competence, aspiration, and wealth creation.
For businesses, this matters. The Conservatives are still some distance from power, but Birmingham has given a much clearer indication of the political coalition they are trying to rebuild and the economic argument they intend to make in order to do so.
Three Key Takeaways from the Conference
1. The Conservatives’ strategy for dealing with Reform is evolving.
One of the most important developments at this year’s conference is how the Conservatives are beginning to approach the threat from Reform.
During Badenoch’s first year as leader, considerable effort went into rebuilding the Party’s credibility on immigration. The Conservatives repented for allowing migration to rise while in government and proposed a significantly tougher approach. Yet there is a growing acceptance within the Party that competing with Reform primarily on borders is a contest they are unlikely to win.
Nigel Farage can almost always move further and promise more. Trying to “out-Farage” Farage therefore risks allowing Reform to determine the terms of the political debate, while doing relatively little to rebuild the broader electoral coalition the Conservatives ultimately need.
Badenoch’s speech showed more clearly what the alternative strategy looks like. Arguably the strongest section was her direct attack on Reform, focusing on what she portrayed as a party increasingly consumed by chaos and scandal. She coupled this with a critique of Reform’s conception of Englishness, before making a direct appeal to its voters to “come back home,” telling them they “deserve better.”
The distinction between Reform and its voters was deliberate. Badenoch was particularly emphatic in rejecting calls to “unite the right.” Pointing to Reform, her message was simple: “We are not uniting with that. People deserve better.” It received one of the loudest rounds of applause in the hall.
There is an important nuance to this attack. Badenoch was not simply trying to compete with Reform on its own territory. Much of her language appeared designed to appeal to voters who may share concerns about immigration but are turned off by culture-war arguments and want the Conservative Party to return to more familiar territory around fiscal discipline, lower taxes, and economic competence.
As we look towards the next General Election, whenever that may be, the emerging strategy is therefore clear. First, win back enough former Conservative voters from Labour and the Liberal Democrats to move ahead of Reform. Then persuade Reform voters that the Conservatives are the right-wing party capable not simply of expressing their frustrations, but of governing.
Badenoch’s speech sharpened that second part of the argument. She is no longer leaving open the possibility that the route back requires accommodation with Reform. Instead, she is seeking to draw a clear distinction between the two parties while giving former Conservative voters who have moved to Reform permission to return.
2. A clearer Conservative theory of government is starting to emerge.
One of the most interesting things about Birmingham has been the growing confidence with which the Conservatives are making the case for their own beliefs.
The central economic proposition is increasingly straightforward: Britain needs faster growth, a smaller state, lower taxes, less regulation and stronger incentives to work, invest, and create wealth. Badenoch described economic growth as the “central organizing principle,” warning that “unless we start creating more value, unless we start growing our economy, something is going to break.”
That argument was reinforced throughout the conference by the Shadow Chancellor. His case was not simply that Labour is getting the economy wrong, but that Britain has become overtaxed and overregulated, the state has taken on too much, and private enterprise, lower taxes, deregulation, and growth should sit at the heart of the Conservative alternative.
Badenoch’s speech then put some political flesh on those bones. She returned explicitly to tax cuts, including halving national insurance for under-25s and announcing that no one would pay inheritance tax on their family home. Those commitments were accompanied by GBP30 billion of proposed welfare savings, allowing Badenoch to argue that lower taxes must be funded by reducing the size and cost of the state.
This is important because, under Badenoch, the Conservatives increasingly appear willing to advocate for what they believe in rather than simply position themselves against Labour or react to Reform. Her closing argument distilled the choice she wants voters to see at the next election: Labour taking more of people’s money against Conservatives letting them keep more of what they earn; Labour looking to government for the answers against Conservatives trusting people to decide for themselves.
For business, this is perhaps the most important development from Birmingham. A Conservative government remains a distant prospect, but the Party is now setting out a much clearer economic offer, with implications for taxation, regulation, welfare, energy, planning, and the relationship between government and business. Those ideas are likely to provide the foundations of the next Conservative manifesto and, before then, could influence the wider political debate as Labour and Reform respond.
3. The fight for survival is becoming a fight for the aspirational voter.
The Conservatives will be happy with how their conference has gone. For a party that arrived at last year’s gathering questioning its relevance and its future, Birmingham felt markedly more confident. The leadership believes it now has a clearer strategy for rebuilding its electoral coalition and, both on the conference floor and from the stage, the Party very much appeared up for the fight.
None of this means the Conservatives have escaped their existential predicament. The Party still needs to demonstrate that its strategy can translate into sustained electoral recovery, while the threat that Reform could permanently replace it as the principal party of the British right remains.
But there is now greater clarity about where Conservative strategists believe the route back begins: with the aspirational voter.
These are working and middle-class voters who historically saw the Conservatives as the party most likely to reward work, enterprise, and success. Many lost faith after the political turmoil of the final years of Conservative government, particularly following the Liz Truss mini-budget. Winning them back requires more than dissatisfaction with Labour; it requires restoring confidence in the Conservative Party itself.
The major announcements in Badenoch’s speech were designed with this coalition in mind. For younger voters, the offer went beyond halving national insurance for under-25s to include reducing the interest charged on some student loans. At the other end of the spectrum, Badenoch has previously recommitted to the pension triple lock. The message is that the Conservatives want to make it easier to get ahead, while protecting those who have spent their lives working and saving.
Perhaps the clearest appeal to the aspirational voter, however, came on inheritance tax. Badenoch announced that no one would pay inheritance tax on their family home. Politically, the significance goes beyond the number of people directly affected. It allows the Conservatives to make a broader argument about aspiration, home ownership, and whether families should be able to pass the rewards of their work to the next generation.
The objective is to reconstruct an electoral coalition around economic aspiration rather than simply assemble one around anger with the status quo. There are signs that Badenoch herself has begun to rebuild some of the political capital needed to attempt this. But the gap between the leader’s improved standing and the Party’s electoral position remains significant. Polling presented at conference suggested that only around a third of voters who like Badenoch would currently vote Conservative.
Rebuilding the Conservative Electoral Coalition
That is the test now. Badenoch ended her speech by declaring that the Conservatives had “learned from our mistakes” and were “ready to fight for our values, ready to win the argument, ready to govern.” Whether that confidence translates into support is another question. But Birmingham suggests the Conservatives now have a clearer idea of the voters they need to win, the economic argument they want to make, and how they intend to confront the threat from Reform. For a party that arrived at last year’s
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