Six months after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader of the UK Conservative Party, internal discussions have already shifted toward the possibility of replacing her.
With local elections in England approaching, many Conservative MPs and officials are increasingly dissatisfied with Badenoch’s leadership and have expressed concerns that she is not the right person to lead the party into the next general election, scheduled for 2029.
According to more than two dozen sources who spoke to Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity, there is growing support within the party to replace Badenoch with Robert Jenrick, the right-wing shadow justice secretary.
The discontent comes amid low polling numbers for the Tories and the perception that Badenoch, who became leader on November 2, 2024,has failed to address key issues, leaving the party vulnerable to challenges from Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. Badenoch’s spokesperson declined to comment on the situation, while Jenrick’s spokesperson pointed to an interview in which he expressed support for Badenoch’s leadership, suggesting people should give her time.
The situation is expected to worsen with the upcoming local elections, where the Conservatives are predicted to lose a significant number of seats. The Tories’ performance in these elections is crucial, as they are seen as an early indicator of the party’s standing ahead of the general election. In the last local election in 2021, the Conservatives won nearly half the races, bolstered by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s successful COVID-19 vaccine rollout. However, since then, the party’s popularity has plummeted, and they are now facing their worst-ever performance.
Political analysts predict a “total wipe-out” for the Conservatives in the upcoming elections, with Rob Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, calling it a “total and unmitigated disaster.” After briefly overtaking Labour in polls late last year, the Conservatives have fallen more than five percentage points behind both Labour and Reform, with the latter now emerging as a strong challenger on the right.
