Kemi Badenoch has reshuffled the shadow cabinet, sacking her shadow chancellor and her shadow foreign secretary, as well as making other changes at the lower ranks to promote younger Conservative MPs.
But what does it mean? First and most obviously, the Tories are betting on an early election. After a summer of speculation about whether the Prime Minister will “go early” to capitalise on a honeymoon period of popularity, the opposition seems to have concluded that it is more likely than not. Those with longer memories will recall that, when she became Tory leader, Badenoch consciously adopted a slow approach on the basis that a parliament with a large Labour majority would last the full term.
She pledged two years of policy work behind the scenes and no unnecessary changes to her top team until the next election. Alas, events got ahead of her. There was the rise of Reform UK, which forced Badenoch to start throwing out eye-catching policy ideas, such as her pledge at the 2025 Tory conference to abolish stamp duty. And now, the emergence of a relatively popular new Labour PM, who may wish to secure his own mandate, has shortened the odds of an early poll and created a scramble for the Tories to get on a war footing. James Cleverly’s decision to resign his shadow cabinet post and run for London mayor was a useful catalyst.
Secondly, the shape of the reshuffle shows Badenoch has listened to and conceded a persistent critique from the right (though she would be loathe to admit it). Both the right of the Conservative Party and the right-wing challengers in Reform have been saying, ever since she formed her original shadow cabinet in late 2024, that too many “failed” ministers from the last Conservative government retained senior positions.
The targets of their ire became clear in January when Robert Jenrick crashed out of the Tory party. In the speech in which he announced he was joining Reform, Jenrick made parting shots at both Mel Stride and Priti Patel, deriding their respective records on welfare and immigration under the governments of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. Stride and Patel were the two major casualties of the reshuffle.
Likewise, there’s the fate of Claire Coutinho, who has been moved from the energy brief to become shadow business secretary. Despite being widely considered an asset, Coutinho was at the unfortunate centre of the Conservative Party’s policy whiplash when it moved from government to opposition. In government she had served as Sunak’s energy secretary, presiding over the net zero drive. In opposition, Badenoch dumped the whole net zero agenda and declared it an anti-business disaster. When Coutinho went along with this as Badenoch’s shadow energy secretary and declared herself a zealous convert to the anti-net zero cause, her Labour opponents pointed out the apparent hypocrisy.
In cheering news for Badenoch, the reshuffle has won plaudits among opinion shapers at newspapers such as the Times (“much-needed”), the Daily Mail (“bold”) and the Telegraph (“a show of strength”). The prospect of an early election is also sharpening minds in the wider right-wing ecosystem of the media, think tanks, etc. While in the early part of this parliament, some tastemakers dallied with the idea of Reform replacing the Tories within one parliamentary term, time seems to be running out. Neither side has proved strong enough to destroy the other and in opinion polls both are floating in the 20s, with Reform slightly humbled in recent months but still in the more powerful position.
If an election is on the way, then the British right has only two plausible options on the table – a messy pact between Reform and the Tories which enrages the ultras on both sides, or mutually assured destruction and a second term for Labour. This reshuffle does not change that stark reality.
[Further reading: Britain must stop paying benefits to millionaires]
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