The politics of being forgotten by Yash Irwin

There is a peculiar humiliation in British politics that does not involve losing an election, being heckled in Parliament or watching Nigel Farage steal your voters. It is being …forgotten.

For Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, this may be the most interesting political development of all. Her name has not disappeared entirely, of course. She still makes occasional headlines, attacks Reform UK, criticises Labour and attempts to persuade the country that the Conservatives remain a government-in-waiting rather than a political museum undergoing renovations. But compared with the endless political oxygen once consumed by Conservative leaders, Badenoch can sometimes appear to be competing with the weather forecast for public attention.

And that raises an uncomfortable question for the Conservatives: is relative silence a sign of recovery, or irrelevance? The answer, unfortunately for Badenoch, may be a little of both. Her personal standing has improved from the depths reached after she became leader. There are even signs that voters increasingly regard her as decisive and competent. That is hardly a trivial achievement. But the Conservative Party remains substantially less popular than its leader, and the central problem confronting Badenoch is that improving perceptions of Kemi Badenoch is not the same thing as reviving the Conservative Party.

Politics is not a personality rehabilitation programme. The Conservatives have a much larger problem. They lost the 2024 election catastrophically, and since then their political territory has been invaded from the right by Reform UK, while Labour occupies much of the centre-left and the Liberal Democrats continue to make life uncomfortable in traditionally Conservative territory.

Badenoch's instinct has been to fight Reform by refusing to become Reform. That is sensible in theory. Yet the temptation to imitate its language, priorities and cultural battles remains obvious. She has ruled out an electoral pact with Nigel Farage and attacked Reform as a party of grievance. But the Conservatives cannot simultaneously tell voters that Reform is dangerous and spend their time explaining why they are almost, but not quite, as angry as Reform.

That is not a strategy. It is competitive shouting. The deeper problem is that Badenoch's Conservatives have yet to answer the question that matters most: what exactly are they for?

Cutting taxes is not a philosophy. Reducing regulation is not a philosophy. Opposing net zero policies is not a philosophy. Tougher immigration policies are not a philosophy. These may all have political value, but voters eventually want to know what kind of country a Conservative government intends to build.

A party cannot live indefinitely on the promise that everyone else is worse. This is why Badenoch's apparent disappearance from the headlines could actually be useful. Silence can create space for a political leader to develop rather than merely react. If she uses it to construct a coherent economic and social programme, rebuild credibility and demonstrate that conservatism is about more than fighting cultural enemies, she may eventually benefit.

But silence can also become invisibility. The Conservatives should therefore be careful what they wish for. A leader who stops generating damaging headlines may be an improvement. A leader who stops generating headlines because voters have stopped listening is something else entirely.

Badenoch's challenge is not simply to become louder. British politics already has enough noise. Her challenge is to become consequential. That requires turning the Conservatives from an angry opposition into a credible alternative government. It requires convincing voters that the party has learned something from its spectacular collapse rather than merely changing the person standing behind the lectern.

At present, the most dangerous thing happening to Kemi Badenoch may not be that people dislike her. It may be that they are beginning not to care. For a political leader, controversy can be survived. Indifference is much harder.