If Badenoch's party fails to reverse the electoral disaster of last year, the Tories’ appetite for ousting underperforming leaders will likely return with full force.

The ‘first 100 days’ has become something of a political benchmark, a time when leaders are closely scrutinised and judged on their early actions. But David Axelrod, a former top aide to President Obama once argued that the milestone is little more than a ‘hallmark holiday,’ a moment of fanfare without much substance.

The first 100 days of Kemi Badenoch’s leadership could be defined in much the same way – heavy on reaction but light on substance.  On February 10, she reached this milestone, and the media, commentators, and polls wasted no time evaluating her performance as the fourth Tory leader in just three years.

And the verdicts weren’t too pretty, with one YouGov poll showing that just one in seven voters think Badenoch looks like a prime minister in waiting and only a quarter believe she is doing a good job as leader of the opposition.

Her ‘anti-woke’ values and no-nonsense style, might ‘talk the talk’ for the party’s right-wing faction but under her leadership, the party continues to lack clear policy direction and coherent vision for the future. Unfortunately for Kemi, these were the very principles on which she framed her leadership bid when she said the party must unite around a clear set of values and policies.

Rather than proposing concrete alternatives to Labour’s approach, it took almost 100 days for Badenoch to announce the Tories’ first major policy under her leadership – barring migrants on work visas who claim benefits from settling indefinitely in the UK. As noted by Stephen Bush of the Financial Times, while parties can win power without a clear focus, this absence is partly why the Tories struggled when last in government and is partly why Labour is facing challenges in office.

A polarising figure within her own party

The failure to establish the unifying clarity the party desperately needs is causing unease within Tory ranks, where Badenoch remains a polarising figure. While full-on panic has yet to set in, the divide seems to have deepened as she passes her first 100 days in office.

One Tory MP expressed their discontent, saying: “It’s been an underwhelming start. Last week we had an overhyped policy announcement on immigration that will do nothing to satisfy a public angry that we achieved so little when we were in power. If we are going to address a major policy failure from the last government the solution needs to be better than this. Meanwhile the prime minister is getting the upper hand at PMQs. We are looking for a big improvement in the next 100 days.”

Yet others within the party remain loyal. Nigel Huddleston, the party chairman, praised Badenoch for “holding this dreadful Labour government to account,” while former Tory MP Alexander Stafford, commended her for having “done a very strong job of underlining the fact that the party is under new management” and for “telling some home truths and refreshing the brand.”

The polls don’t lie

But whether praised or condemned, the polls confirm that the “renewal” Badenoch promised is nowhere in sight. Quite the opposite in fact, as the Tories have fallen to a dismal third place, trailing Labour and Reform.

A YouGov poll marking Badenoch’s 100 days shows the scale of her challenge.

Badenoch trails Starmer – whose own popularity has nosedived – in best prime minister rankings. She’s head-to-head with Farage and is well behind Ed Davey, which is the most alarming stat of all for the Tories, as it’s very difficult to see that they could possibly govern alone without winning back the 59 seats they lost to the Libs Dems in 2024.

Last month, the polling aggregator Election Maps UK took an average of recent opinion polls and identified that support for Labour had dropped 8.7 points since the 2024 general election. The Tories were down 0.9 points, and the Lib Dems down 0.1 points.

By contrast, support for Reform was up 9.3 points, and support for the Greens up 1.4 points.

While it’s not uncommon for parties to lose popularity with the electorate when they enter government, the primary beneficiary of this when Labour has been in government, has historically been the Tories.

The fact that the Tories are failing to capitalise on Labour’s waning support suggests they may be slipping into irrelevance in British politics, and that Badenoch is struggling to reverse their fortunes. For a party with a tradition of ousting underperforming leaders, this could mean trouble for its current leader.

Plummeting membership as funds dry up

To add to their woes, the party is reportedly running out of money, as membership is now trailing behind that of Reform, which has surpassed 200,000.

The party’s financial troubles have led to a sharp drop in staffing, with the Tory HQ’s workforce shrinking from 200 to just 60 employees. The survival of its northern HQ in Leeds, which was opened under Boris Johnson, is also under question. Meanwhile, donations that might have helped hold off the Tory party’s financial crisis are instead going to rival party campaigns, most notably Reform.

With insufficient funds to hire political advisers for shadow cabinet ministers, insiders have warned that the party may need to raise £5 million in the coming months just to stay afloat.

Existential concerns

In light of this generally grim outlook, thoughts have already turned to more existential concerns. One Tory insider suggested there’s a “40% chance” the Conservative Party might not survive. A former special adviser argued that Tory MPs are “totally deluded” about how bad things are, adding: “They’ve got this view that it will fizzle out. They think of Farage as he was in 2015 or 2017, when he was an outsider campaigning on a single issue. He was still appearing on things like Russia Today.

“For the next 18 months Reform will be getting positive media coverage. They’re going to do well in the local elections this spring and the big ones in May 2026.”

Avoiding the media rounds

And media coverage has become a growing sore point for the current Tory party, with one concern being Badenoch’s apparent reluctance to engage with the press.

Past leaders, like Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron and even Boris Johnson, all mastered the art of media engagement in their own distinctive ways, turning hostile questions into political wins.

Yet Badenoch seems to shy away from the media rounds, dishing them out to her shadow cabinet colleagues, something that is worrying many within her party.

“Kemi absolutely hates doing media. She does not see it as an integral part of her job,” one former adviser said. “We could get away with that in government but in opposition you have to turn up to the opening of an envelope. She should be trying to get clips on the news every night. But she is not prepared to do it.”

An MP said: “In opposition, it’s a one-man or one-woman show. With the best will in the world, voters don’t know who Chris Philp is, and they don’t care what he says.”

Senior Conservatives have also complained that their leader neglects other basics, such as fundraising dinners and constituency events.

“She thinks she can do the job differently, but the fact is, 90% of it is graft,” said one Tory MP. “She wants to be an architect, but being leader of the opposition is more like being a bricklayer.”

By contrast, Nigel Farage is a media and fundraising powerhouse. Just last week, the Reform leader raised over £1 million at Oswald’s, the exclusive Mayfair gentlemen’s club, which was attended by former Conservative donors including Bassim Haidar and Mohamed Amersi, who each paid £25,000 to join a top table with Farage.

On the media circuit, Farage has appeared, somewhat notoriously, on Question Time 38 times. Badenoch has yet to even begin to embark on this peculiarly British political rite of passage. In fact, she even refused to take part in a BBC Question Time special on the Tory leadership contest last October.

In bed with Farage? Perhaps not

As the Tories’ fortunes continue to falter, some within the party are calling for a Reform/Tory pact, arguing that on current poll numbers, the two parties combined could rule in coalition.

Former cabinet ministers, Sir Brandon Lewis and Esther McVey, warned that the Tories nor Reform would be able to defeat Labour unless they agreed to cooperate.

While her old leadership rival Robert Jenrick may have refused to rule out a pact with Reform, Badenoch has repeatedly vetoed such a move.

Just this week, she ruled it out again, claiming striking a deal with Reform would drive away voters who did not want to see her ‘get into bed’ with Nigel Farage.

When asked about Lewis and McVey’s remarks, Badenoch told theTelegraph:

“There are many people who vote Conservative, who if they think that we’re having mergers or pacts or whatever with Reform, will go elsewhere.”

But despite repeated official denials, the Tories have reportedly held ‘top-secret talks’ on merging with Reform. First reported by the Spectator, all options are said to be on the table, ranging from a complete merger to an agreement over not standing candidates against each other.

“Some Tories have concluded that as the election gets closer, the situation could get worse for them. Better to form an alliance sooner rather than later,” wrote the Spectator’s Katy Balls.

A May 2026 deadline?

As the uncertainty continues, some Tory frontbenchers are already setting a deadline for Badenoch, as the FT reports. The party’s performance in the polls must drastically improve by May 2026, or she could face pressure to step down. With key elections next year, including the locals, Senedd, and Holyrood elections, the results will be a crucial test.

So far, it appears that, like many European centre-right parties, Badenoch faces the dilemma of shifting right to court the anti-immigrant vote or risk alienating more centrist supporters. She seems to be holding the line in favour of the latter. But like all politicians, she will live or die by the polls, no matter how much she may deny it. If her party fails to reverse the electoral disaster of last year, the Tories’ appetite for ousting underperforming leaders will likely return with full force.

Badenoch might have now crossed the 100-day mark, but for many within the Tory ranks, the real question is whether she’ll make it through another 100 days.

With the challenges ahead, only time will tell.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

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