From Thatcher to Farage, what’s on the Conservative conference agenda?

Having been virtually invisible during recent fierce arguments between Labour and Reform UK, the Conservatives have an opportunity to remind voters of their existence as their annual conference takes place in Manchester from Sunday.

It might even be entertaining. Kemi Badenoch, party leader, is certainly massaging expectations lower to the point of inducing depression among her followers. She likens her role to “picking up a distressed asset and turning it around”, and it will take time: “To use a corporate analogy, the quarterly returns may not be great, but the long-term strategy will deliver,” she said. “If we’re looking for sugar highs just to get us through the week, get us through the day, we will not win the next election.”

Expect lots of flags, though…

That was Keir Starmer’s cruel jibe during his conference speech this week, and a bit cheeky given that public support for Labour is barely ahead of the Conservatives. Both are on around 16 to 20 per cent in the polls – with Nigel Farage’s party at about 30 per cent. Still, it’s worth remembering that the Conservative and Unionist Party has been around since at least 1834, has governed Britain, alone or in coalition, for about 67 of the last 100 years, and is commonly accepted to be the most successful political party in the democratic world.

Depends on where you stand. For those loyal to Kemi Badenoch’s leadership it will be the (unusual) two keynote speeches she’ll be making: one to open proceedings on Sunday, and another to put fire in the bellies of the activists as they head off on Wednesday.

Besides that, there’ll be a party to celebrate the centennial of Margaret Thatcher’s birth, lots of boozy receptions, John Curtice will be dispensing some psephological home truths, and they’ve organised a members’ policy pitch competition called “Backbench Bill-Off”.

A quick glance at the handbook suggests Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly, Claire Coutinho and rising star Katie Lam will be highly conspicuous – all plausible leadership contenders, whatever they say.

Possibly, but not to the Conservatives. Nigel Farage is sufficiently motivated to destroy them that he would surely love to present a couple more scalps during the same week as the Tories’ latest attempt to pick themselves up off the floor.

For a few days, but the threat from Reform, especially, is focusing minds on next year’s important elections in Scotland, Wales, London and some English counties. She’ll need to deliver two strong speeches, avoid gaffes and hope that her colleagues manage to behave themselves. She’s vulnerable.

He will be haunting them even more than he did Labour. In bars, at the drinks parties, and the fringe sessions, there will be incessant debate about how to deal with this unfamiliar threat from the hard right. Some want to out-Farage Farage, some want to “unite the right”, but the leadership will try to carve out a niche as a more fiscally responsible, mature party than Labour, Reform or indeed the Liberal Democrats, who took so many of their more moderate, pro-European voters and seats at the last general election.

One big question is how they counter Farage’s proposal to scrap “indefinite leave to remain”, with its accompanying threat of deportation (and Shabana Mahmood’s Labour version). What will Kemi, and her rivals, say when she’s asked if Farage, his policy or his voters are “racist”? Does she condemn him as an extremist or try to outflank him? How will she react if she is asked if she is “English” and/or “British”, as she has recently remarked she “no longer identifies” as Nigerian?

So far, Badenoch has commented that Farage is “someone who is quite happy to stir things up and agitate” and that Starmer and Farage are both “playing grievance politics”. Unlike Starmer and his ministers, she won’t want to spend all week talking about Reform UK.

Badenoch’s plan means policy on most of the big economic matters and public service reforms needs more work and must wait until nearer to the next general election, to the frustration of some colleagues. However, she has just committed to repealing the 2008 Climate Change Act and pursuing a “cheap energy” policy instead.

She may well announce that the next Conservative government will leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which will be controversial even in today’s climate – it was a step that Rishi Sunak and his government refused to take. Jenrick will probably go a bit too far on race and immigration policy. He knows what he’s doing.

EU ambassador to Britain Pedro Serrano is putting in an appearance in this nest of Europhobes, and Michael Heseltine – 92, and suspended from the party in the Johnson-Cummings era – will also be appearing on the fringe, a reminder of a better yesterday. He’ll be “reflecting on the UK’s place in Europe and the future of One Nation Conservatism”.

It seems not, and of the Tories’ nine extant former leaders, only William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith will show up. Perhaps just as well. But on her centennial, and it being 50 years since she became leader, Thatcher will be a constant presence, most notably in a new historical movie to be shown in the “Thatcher Theatre”. A subliminal hope is that Badenoch can do for her party in 2025-29 what Thatcher did in 1975-79 – renew the party and return it to power.

The curious can find out on Tuesday when there is a “gender critical” platform debate, just to remind the British people about the Tories’ current obsessions.