‘Moving the Overton window past the edge of a cliff… Ta, Kemi!’
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch officially declared that centrist ideas are no longer welcome in her party in a speech yesterday.
Her remarks come days after the former West Midlands mayor Andy Street and former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson launched Prosper UK, an organisation aimed at those on the centre-right who feel “politically homeless”.
Badenoch instead told those uncomfortable with the rightward direction she is taking the party that they “need to get out of the way”.
At the same time, the Tory leader said she welcomed any help that could win her party an election.
However, she ruled out entertaining any policies that are not based around her right-leaning ideas.
While this is not surprising, given Badenoch has scrapped the Tories’ net zero policy and pledged to create an ICE-style deportation force, it does raise even more questions about what now differentiates them from Reform UK.
In a post on X, LBC presenter Lewis Goodall wrote: “One of the stories of British politics over the last 15 years has been Conservatives and Labour valuing narrower and narrower ideological coherence over their historic, broad coalitions and then being astonished that their vote shares keep falling.”
Another X user commented: “Kemi Badenoch tells us that the UK now has two Farageist parties – the Farageist party led by Farage, and the Farageist party not led by Farage.”
Meanwhile, a Lib Dem councillor wrote on Bluesky: “Moving the Overton window past the edge of a cliff… Ta, Kemi!”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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