Tories facing new reality of multi-party era

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said the Conservatives are facing the new reality of multi-party politics as she braces for losses in the local elections.

She insisted she was leading a “new party” and hoped for some eye-catching successes when results come through on Friday, but acknowledged that the old era of Tory and Labour national dominance was over.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK have consistently led national opinion polls for more than a year and are poised to make big inroads in councils across England and in the Scottish and Welsh parliamentary contests.

Mrs Badenoch insisted she would not do any deals with her rivals and claimed her party had been helped by troublemakers defecting to Mr Farage’s party.

She told the Press Association: “What we’re going to see on Friday is what multi-party politics looks like.

The two-party era has moved into a multi-party era.

“But the fact is none of these new parties or Labour have a plan for the country.

What’s astonishing is that a Labour government that came in less than two years ago on a landslide has become so unpopular.

“They thought governing was easy.

It is not.

“The people who know how to govern, who know how to run things, are Conservatives.

“Things were not always perfect under us.

I’m not pretending that, but we know what went wrong.

We’ve acknowledged those mistakes and we’ve got a plan to fix things.”
The Tory leader is more popular than either Mr Farage or Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – a YouGov poll last month gave her a -21 net favourability rating, with Mr Farage on -38 and Labour leader Sir Keir on -45.

But her party still trails a long way behind Reform in national opinion polls.

Asked if that showed she needed to change some of the other faces at the top of her party, she played down the prospect of a reshuffle.

She told the Press Association “I have got a good team.

We are a strong, united team.

I’m very pleased with the Conservative MPs who work with me.

Local elections 2026: Mumsnet boss warning as battle for 'London mums' vote heats up
'Don't believe Polanski promises,' says Starmer as Labour and Greens in London battle
Make 2026 the year of working smarter
“I’m also very pleased with the councillors who we have who are running councils and those who want to run councils.

“I think that if people look across the board, many of the people who were causing problems in the Conservative Party have actually gone to Reform.

“That’s what Conservatives are doing today.”
Tory peer and polling expert Lord Hayward has forecast the Conservatives will lose 600 seats when Thursday’s votes are counted.

Mrs Badenoch said the party hoped to make gains in areas like Wandsworth, south London – once a Tory flagship council famed for its low tax.

She said: “We are fighting for every single vote.

We’re contesting a lot of councils, very competitively.

“I’m here in Wandsworth today.

I would love to see Wandsworth go blue again.

This was a flagship Conservative council which we lost four years ago.

“But in this era of multi-party politics, there are no safe seats, so we’re fighting for every single vote.

We’re not counting our chickens, like parties like Reform are doing.

“We are telling people the Conservative Party is the only party that has a plan for this country, a new party under new leadership, with a plan to help fix councils up and down the UK.”
She ruled out the prospect of a deal with Mr Farage or even local pacts to run authorities with Reform.

“I don’t want to see coalitions with Reform at local councils, because these are the people who we kicked out of the Conservative Party.

Many of them are people who caused problems in our party and are the reason why we ended up losing,” she said.

“So, no thank you.

No deals with Reform at national or local level.”
Mrs Badenoch spent the last day of campaigning touring London boroughs in a Conservative-branded taxi, including a trip to a barber shop in Croydon, a garden centre in Enfield and a stroll through fields in Orpington.