Attending the recent conference held by London Conservatives, party leader Kemi Badenoch sat before a backdrop bearing the message “London’s Conservative Renewal”. Accuracy required the words “does not exist” to have followed, but they did not. Maybe they fell off the slide, but I don’t think so.
Last May, the Tories fielded, in Susan Hall, their worst ever candidate for Mayor of London and probably the worst they could have found. They duly fell to a big defeat distinguished by a loss of vote share across most of outer London, which they had convinced themselves would rise up against Sir Sadiq Khan’s second expansion of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone. It didn’t. A core premise of their campaign had been exposed as a delusion. Yet their candidate proclaimed she’d “nearly” won.
Two months later, at the general election, the number of Tory MPs in Greater London slumped to nine out of 75 and the party’s vote share barely topped 20 per cent. Since then, Labour’s national poll rating has declined. But a glut of borough by-elections has seen the Tories make up very little ground. In December, a large opinion poll found that were another national vote held, the Conservatives would gain only three of Labour’s 59 seats, and those by tiny margins which, in Lewis Baston view, would probably be wiped out by anti-Tory tactical voting.
During the build up to election after election of late, we London politics nerds have asked ourselves if “peak Labour” has been reached and if a Tory recovery will begin. Such an outcome has repeatedly not happened. The capital’s next big democratic event will be the May 2026 full borough elections. Given that the Labour government could still be unpopular at that time, the Tories can be expected to make gains. But unless they get a grip, these could be small.
Like the Tories nationally, London Conservatism shows little sign of understanding why its standing in the capital has been in a state of ongoing collapse. No one personifies this better than Hall. A feature of her candidacy was the exposure of her back catalogue of social media endorsements of sundry far-Right fanatics, enthusiasms for which she declined to show remorse.
Indeed, she’s carried on doing the same thing. The election of Donald Trump, one of her old favourites, has filled her with delight. She’s been especially impressed by what she called the US President’s “offer” to people she termed the “palestineonoions” to rebuild Gaza as a holiday resort if they would kindly go and live somewhere else.
Impressed? If so, you may be equally endeared to her London Assembly colleague Alessandro Georgiou. He too is excited by the return of Trump, whom he considers to have made “serious cabinet appointments” and rejoices in his “having fun”. Other Georgiou X output this year has included calling the Labour government “Nasty Commies” and railing against “nanny statists” in “commie enclaves“. His maturity brings to mind that of the Federation of Conservative Students in the 1980s. City Hall may have to open a creche.
Let’s set aside for the moment the curiosity of Hall, a self-styled scourge of crime and champion of women, heaping praise on a convicted fraudster who has commuted the sentences of fellow criminals who tried to overthrow the result of a legitimate election by force, and who was made to compensate with millions of dollars a woman he sexually abused and defamed.
Let’s save for another time the small matters of Georgiou, who parades as a patriot, cheering on a man now threatening tariffs on UK products and how much “fun” Georgiou thinks it is that his sidekick Elon Musk, the richest human alive, has been arranging the starvation of some the world’s poorest children.
For now, let’s concentrate instead on what Trump-worship and coming on like a tribute act to Reform UK might do for the Tories’ future prospects in the capital.
Remember, as always, that Greater London and its people are extremely varied. Conservatives may contend that a relentless foraging – “faraging”? – for populist favour will help them to repel the challenge of Reform in some parts of outer London. But perhaps they shouldn’t bank on it – Reform voters, after all, have a low opinion of Tories.
Meanwhile, in other parts of London a Continuity Brexit outlook seems unlikely to endear Conservatives to the sorts of Londoner whose support they once enjoyed: cosmopolitan, socially liberal middle-class professionals whose alienation helps explain why Labour is now ascendant in Wandsworth and Westminster.
Let’s look ahead to May 2026 as a Tory optimist might. Let’s assume the party holds on to unpredictable Harrow, to the knife-edge Croydon mayoralty and to Hillingdon, Bexley and Bromley, three boroughs where support for them isn’t as quite as solid as it was. Let’s take it as read that Kensington & Chelsea, a very different organisation to what it was ten years ago, isn’t going anywhere. That’s six boroughs out of the 32.
Now, let’s imagine Westminster swinging back to them, perhaps helped by opposition in key wards to Mayor Khan’s Oxford Street pedestrianisation plan. That’s seven. Let’s say Barnet and Wandsworth, both of them lost last time, are still within their reach. Let’s throw in Enfield, where the Tories picked up some seats four years ago and where Georgiou, who leads the Tory group there, is making the most of talk of building on the local Green Belt. That would be ten – still less than one third of London’s local authorities.
What are their chances of doing even that well? Much will, of course, depend on the fortunes of the parties nationally. Labour isn’t exactly thriving at present, but neither are the Tories. To the latter’s ongoing drift to the extreme Right, we can add their lack of activists, leadership and coordination.
Their mayoral candidate selection for 2024 was a fiasco. Their current Programme Manager, Chairman London Conservatives, an organiser of their London conference, has had nothing to say on social media since November. Posting from the event, one of their many unsuccessful 2024 London candidates stood delightedly next to Hall for a photo as if she were some kind of star and tagged another X account, @LdnConservative, that has been dormant since May 2022.
How can London’s Tories get themselves out of the dark and dismal hole they are in? It grieves me to need to state the obvious, but duty demands I gently suggest that they stop digging. Having set their shovels aside, they then ought to do what Badenoch refuses to, which is hold their hands up and admit that the premierships of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were catastrophes, and that Rishi Sunak’s desperate kow-towing to the GB News agenda didn’t help them. That was especially so in London. If nothing else, such an admission would get them noticed.
Having done that, London’s Tories should stop gazing across the Atlantic and liking what they see. Trump is a tyrant, an egomaniac and a menace to Britain. Instead, they should get reacquainted with their roots.
They should look back, not to some fantasy golden age when Britannia ruled the waves and all the apples were Cox’s orange pippins, but to when Conservatism associated itself not with blocking housebuilding at all costs but with nurturing home ownership and even, long ago, with building council homes.
To when Conservatives weren’t in favour of slashing policing budgets – something shadow home secretary Chris Philp, with a preposterously straight face, is pretending never happened – or making excuses for ULEZ vandals, but with maintaining good order on the streets.
To when Tories saw themselves as custodians of local neighbourhoods and high streets, rather than cheering on the financial enervation of local councils.
How about it, whoever is in charge? In 2028, City Hall will again be up for grabs. With a decent candidate, a helpful national climate and – just for once – a positive bunch of policy ideas for London, the Tories could have a decent chance of winning. Is anyone in the London party thinking seriously about how to make that happen? Perhaps they are. If so, they should make their voices heard.
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