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Is Badenoch's 'Renewal' Addressing Whole Nation Priorities?


Co-founder of Whole Nation Conservatives Miranda Jupp is a longstanding North East Conservative activist and former council candidate. Prior to the 2024 General Election she was Chief of Staff to Sir Simon Clarke.


This week has seen Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, take the first steps in fleshing out her vision of conservatism in two keynote speeches: one at the Centre for Policy Studies’ Remaking Conservatism conference (1), followed by the launch of the Renewal policy initiative, with an emphasis on energy and Net Zero (2). After a notably cautious first few months as Leader of the Opposition, all Conservative campaigners will welcome some clarity on the path ahead for our party, especially as we approach local elections in many parts of the country. 


Whilst the new Conservative offer to the country is (reasonably, given the distance from the next General Election) at an embryonic stage, enough indicators of the direction of travel are emerging to make an early stage assessment of the extent to which Kemi is articulating a vision which can appeal to the whole of the UK. In this regard, one promising aspect is the emergence of an authentically conservative narrative around intergenerational relationships: the Renewal speech both opened and closed with reference to the inheritance each generation leaves for the next. The Burkean ideal of a contract between the living, the dead and the yet to be born lies at the heart of any conservative explanation of the social contract, and is the foundation on which the legitimacy of general taxation being used to meet the needs of both the young (education and childcare) and the old (pensions and the lion’s share of healthcare). 


In recent years, there has not been enough emphasis on what this contract needs to offer younger generations of working people in return for their contribution, so it was very encouraging to see an emphasis on home ownership which was clear about the scale of the challenge: 


“We are not creating a legacy for the next generation.Worse than that, we’re mortgaging our children’s future by not recognising the world has changed, we’re making things harder and harder for them across the board.


You look at real disposable income, GDP per capita or home ownership and you’ll see

things are stagnating or going backwards. In 1974, you could save up for a deposit to buy a house in less than 6 months. Now, the average time is more than 11 years.”


Fantastic work by groups such as NextGenTories and PricedOut (as well as the recently launched Conservative YIMBY) has been pushing this vital injustice up the political agenda and it is brilliant to see this not only recognised by Badenoch but explained in a manner which is explicit about the intergenerational nature of the issue. Failure to address this problem risks the ties that bind society together and this needs to be clear to those further up the ladder who have been reluctant to get behind the need for new homes.


Whilst stepping away from the commitment to Net Zero by 2050 will undoubtedly be cause for plenty of debate (I would note the speech was much more nuanced on this question than some headlines would suggest!), it was very welcome to hear the case made for energy abundance. Whilst the focus of reporting was on Net Zero, the key statement of positive policy was a recognition of the transformative power of energy:


“Every single thing we do in our daily lives is dependent on cheap, abundant energy.

When energy became cheap and abundant, living standards began to rise, health and life expectancy grew.

Cheap, abundant energy is the foundation of civilisation as we know it today. We mess with it at our peril.”


As set out in depth in the excellent Foundations report (3), falling energy generation (alongside barriers to building) has played a huge role in Britain’s stagnation. Britain Remade and others have done some excellent work on how we might go about addressing this and it good to see this approach central to Badenoch’s approach. This is undoubtedly crucial to improving living standards, as well as enabling energy intensive industries, which provide skilled jobs across the country, to continue to operate in Britain.


Whilst the detail of the Renewal speech was quite heavily focused on one area of policy, the Remaking Conservatism keynote covered some bigger picture ground, rounding off with a statement of 4 key priorities:


  • We will cut taxes and scrap burdensome regulations – so businesses can grow, jobs can be created and hard work is rewarded.

  • We know we will fight for secure borders and law and order – because a country that cannot defend itself, at home or abroad, is a country in decline.

  • We know we must shrink the size of the state and end government waste – because people should decide how to spend their money, not politicians.

  • And we know we must stand up for Britain’s values and history – because we should never apologise for our success.


These are important principles, and hard to disagree with, though one thing which is not apparent at this stage is how the new leadership will seek to formulate their own iteration of ‘Levelling Up’ and addressing the regional disparity which is a barrier to meritocracy. Comments regarding mistakes Thatcher made in terms of regeneration of mining communities (4) reported earlier this week indicate that there are grounds for optimism that Kemi recognises the need to consider the needs of those communities which Boris connected with to build a truly Whole Nation coalition in 2019, though at this stage it isn’t yet clear how this will be reflected in the Conservative offer in years to come.


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