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Kemi Badenoch has been warned she needs to “avoid the perception she would cross the road to pick a fight” as she faces the daunting task of trying to turn the Conservative Party around from its worst general election result in history.
The new Tory leader comes across as “energetic and fresh-faced” with voters, but pollsters have said she needs to avoid being “overly combative”.
“I think that is going to be the defining task of her leadership,” More in Common executive director Luke Tryl told The Independent.
His comments came after Ms Badenoch was elected to succeed Rishi Sunak, winning the Tory leadership contest in a landslide over Robert Jenrick.
She called for the party to unite behind her and “be honest” about the mistakes the Conservatives have made after more than 14 years in power.
But, in a sign of the challenge she faces, Ms Badenoch made a gaffe in her first interview as Tory leader, telling the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that the Partygate scandal was “overblown” and the government should not have fined people for breaking lockdown rules.
The Independent also revealed Ms Badenoch had made a joke about rape on her personal Facebook page in 2008.
It is a sign of the pitfalls of Ms Badenoch’s ability to make headlines, with the former business secretary often generating uncomfortable rows for her party.
Mr Tryl said: “When we have done focus groups of voters the Tories lost, they like her and what they hear from her. They say she is energetic, energising, fresh faced, forward thinking… lots of good adjectives.
“But she will have to avoid being seen to cross the road to pick a fight. She needs to be energised and energetic without being overly combative, and I think that is going to be the defining task of her leadership.”
After the Conservatives crashed to their worst general election defeat in history, winning just 121 MPs, Mr Tryl said she would have to “flesh out why the Conservatives lost”.
She has often said the party fell out of favour because it was too left-wing and allowed taxes to get too high. But Mr Tryl said: “It’s because people fundamentally felt they had failed on issues of trust and competence and they were too divided.”
Mr Tryl added that Ms Badenoch should focus on “low-hanging fruit” as leader, going after Tory voters who stayed at home in July or switched to Labour rather than those who backed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Pollster Emma Levin, associate director at Savanta, told The Independent Ms Badenoch will benefit from being a “relative unknown” among the public.
“She gets a new opportunity to present herself to the public, and represent a clean break from a deeply unpopular Conservative government – even if she was a part of it,” Ms Levin said.
She pointed to Savanta research showing Reform voters being unlikely to return to the Tory fold, warning that setting out a credible alternative to Labour is the only way back to power, “rather than attempting to one-up Reform UK on immigration and culture wars”.
Meanwhile pollster Techne UK’s chief executive Michela Morizzo said the key challenge for Ms Badenoch is going to be fighting Reform UK without further polarising the Conservative Party.
She told The Independent: “While Badenoch hopes to attract conservative voters away from parties like Reform UK, there is the risk of alienating moderates and centrists within the party.
“An overly radicalised voter base could be a double-edged sword: alienating moderate conservative voters, especially in large cities and among young people, could weaken the party and limit its chances of regaining power. Furthermore, an excessively right-wing positioning could push the Conservatives too far from the centre, leaving more space to Labour or even new centrist political forces trying to attract moderate votes.”
It came after the four-month leadership contest saw Ms Badenoch win the backing of 53,806 Tory members, with Mr Jenrick taking just 41,388 votes.
Addressing current and former MPs, party members and the press at a hotel in Westminster, Ms Badenoch said: “The time has come to tell the truth. The time has come to tell the truth, to stand up for our principles, to plan for our future, to reset our politics and our thinking, and to give our party, and our country, the new start that they deserve.
“It is time to get down to business, it is time to renew.”
She takes over the Conservatives as the party recorded its first poll lead over Labour since the Partygate scandal broke in December 2021, with BMG Research finding the Tories on 29 per cent of the vote, compared with Sir Keir’s party on 28 per cent.
But a YouGov poll published ahead of the result found four in 10 voters had an unfavourable view of Ms Badenoch, including 29 per cent of Conservative voters, while Britons were more likely to think Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer would make a better prime minister.