Tories facing ‘extremely difficult’ local elections, Badenoch warns

The Conservatives are facing an “extremely difficult” challenge in May’s local elections, Kemi Badenoch warned as she launched the party’s campaign to win town halls.

The Tory leader was also defiant about the threat her party faces from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, urging voters to remember politics is not “showbusiness” and that “you will have to live with what you vote for”.

Voters across a number of county councils and unitary authorities in England will go to the polls on May 1, the first major electoral test since last July’s election.

The Conservatives suffered a crushing general election defeat last summer, and have since been overtaken in opinion polls by Reform.

Mrs Badenoch pledged “lower taxes and better services” as she launched the Tories’ local campaign in Buckinghamshire on Thursday.

“We are the only credible choice: Lib Dems will wreck your public services, Reform has no experience running anything, Greens will run councils into the ground and Labour will spend, tax and waste your money, just like they always do,” she told the audience of Tory activists.

In an attempt to manage expectations about the party’s success in the coming election, Mrs Badenoch said the Conservatives had been “riding high during the vaccine bounce” the last time the councils went to the polls in 2021.

She added that this year would be different after the general election result, telling the audience: “If you map that general election result of 2024 onto this coming May, then we don’t win the councils like we won in 2021, we lose almost every single one.

“I think we’re going to do a bit better than that, but we know that these elections will be extremely difficult.”

Politics is “not showbusiness”, the Conservative leader said in a veiled criticism of Mr Farage, who appeared on reality TV show “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” in 2023.

She added: “This is not a game. This is about people’s lives. This is not for us. It is for all those people out there who need credible politicians. That is what we’re offering.”

The Conservative leader also sought to suggest there would be consequences of voting for Reform UK over the Tories at the local elections.

She said: “These local elections aren’t about me. They are about the public. What is it that they want in terms of public services?

“It is about all of these local councillors who pound the pavements every day, fixing things, making life better for ordinary people. That is what we are doing this May.

“This is not a national referendum. People sometimes will vote for protest parties, but what I’m saying now is that you will have to live with what you vote for.”

Asked whether she considered Reform UK a threat, Mrs Badenoch told the PA news agency: “Ahead of these elections, every party is a threat.

“These election results are going to be challenging because we’ve just had our worst ever defeat, and that’s something that’s going to take a while to recover from.

“So this is a marathon, not a sprint.”

When asked whether important Conservative losses in the May elections would prompt her to reconsider her position as party leader, Mrs Badenoch replied: “No, why on earth would I do that?”

She added: “I’ve just been elected party leader. These results are not about me.

“These results are about a party that’s been in government now for eight months and is making the country much worse, and also the fact that people remember that we have just left government.

“The reason why these results would be really challenging is because four years ago, when we fought them, we were riding very, very high in the polls.

“So, naturally, we’re not going to repeat that sort of result. That’s where the losses are coming from. They’re not a personal indictment on me.”

Earlier this week, Mrs Badenoch scrapped the Conservatives’ commitment to reach net zero by 2050, describing it as “impossible” as she began an overhaul of the party’s policy offer.

The move was compared to the approach followed by Reform UK, which has sought to win over voters sceptical of the environmental policy.

The Tory launch comes just days after Mr Farage revealed 29 councillors had defected to Reform UK from the Conservatives, Lib Dems and from independent political positions, as he kicked off his party’s local campaign.

The Reform UK leader hopes to prove “that the polls aren’t virtual”, and demonstrate his party does have a foothold with the electorate during the May elections.