Road back to power will be challenging for UK’s Conservatives

Fifty years to the week after Margaret Thatcher became leader of the UK’s Conservative Party, comparisons are often drawn between that so-called Iron Lady and the party’s new leader, Kemi Badenoch.

However one might view the relative merits of the two leaders, the pathway back to power is today much more challenging for the Conservatives than it was in the late 1970s under Thatcher, not least because the political right in the country is so fragmented.

Remarkably, the upstart right-wing populist Reform UK has overtaken the Conservatives in many major polls in recent weeks. In a YouGov poll published last week, for instance, Reform was on 25 percent, Labour 24 percent and the Conservatives 21 percent.

This survey also marked the first time that Reform had placed first overall, surpassing even the ruling Labour Party. Among those polled, only 60 percent of people who voted for Labour in the party’s landslide general election victory last July said they would do so now. One in four who voted Conservative at the election said they would now vote for Reform.

The growing threat Reform poses to the Conservatives, and potentially Labour, is significant because the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, has proven himself to be one of the most effective, albeit controversial, politicians of recent decades. This included his contribution to the “Leave” campaign during the 2016 referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU, during which he earned the nickname “Mr. Brexit.”

Certainly, Badenoch is a formidable politician and should not be underestimated. Her personal journey, with much of her childhood spent in Nigeria, is as remarkable as her political ascent in recent years.

Remarkably, the upstart right-wing populist Reform UK has overtaken the Conservatives in many major polls in recent weeks

She won the Conservative leadership contest last November because many party members believed she would bring Thatcherite qualities to the post of leader of the opposition, including what they perceive as a moral clarity that makes her the natural political heir to Thatcher.

While the challenges Badenoch faces in 2025 are much different to those the Iron Lady had to contend with in the mid-1970s, it is clear that the former is trying to copy key elements of the latter’s playbook to regain power.

One example of this is Badenoch’s reluctance to announce an array of new policies, at least in the short term. This follows a template set by Thatcher in February 1975 after she won the party leadership contest, defeating former Prime Minister Edward Heath, who had led the Conservatives to a general election loss to Labour the previous year.

It remains to be seen whether Badenoch can remain in a policy-free zone for as long as Thatcher did. However, her instincts are to follow the former prime minister’s path as closely as possible and only set out her specific policies much closer to the next election, which is likely to be in 2028 or 2029.

If Badenoch succeeds in her mission to become the next prime minister, she will defy recent history and match Thatcher’s own achievement of winning power after only a single term as opposition leader.

There is another major reason why the scale of the challenge the Conservatives face today is significantly greater than it was when Thatcher became leader in 1975 after the party lost power in 1974. Fifty years ago, few people seriously considered the possibility that the Conservatives would not return government at some point. In 2025, this prospect is less certain.

There are several key structural differences to the political landscape now compared with the second half of the 1970s

There are several key structural differences to the political landscape now compared with the second half of the 1970s. For one thing, Reform UK is eating into the core voter base of the Conservatives.

Secondly, the Liberal Democrats have once again become a major political force, winning more than 70 seats in the election last July. The centrist party is challenging the Conservatives for preponderance in much of southern England. The Liberal Party of the 1970s had a much smaller number of seats.

All of this explains why the political mountain Badenoch will have to climb as leader of the opposition in Westminster is so great. The political landscape in the UK that the Conservatives of the mid-2020s have to contend with is significantly more challenging that it was half a century ago, when Thatcher began to plot the path to power that led to her 1979 election victory.

- Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.