There was a moment in the middle of this week when a news alert raised eyebrows among the politically committed. It read: "Kemi Badenoch: Former neo-Nazi candidate would just be sorting out bins." It was a collection of words that might prompt palpitations in the most sanguine of communications professionals, followed by panicked advice that retreat was necessary. But as a deeply weird week for the Conservative party came to a close on Friday, its leader appeared adamant she would hold the line. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
With Badenoch accused of aping Reform UK on policy and purging centrists from her party in recent weeks, her decision to stand by a man who was jailed after creating sexualised images of a Jewish MP and calling her a "rodent" has prompted concerns about the leader of the opposition's political antennae and the Tories' wider strategy.
On Monday it emerged that Joshua Bonehill-Paine, a former neo-Nazi activist convicted of the sexist and antisemitic harassment of the Labour peer Luciana Berger, had been selected as a Conservative candidate for a local election in Somerset.
A little over 48 hours later, Bonehill-Paine – creator of pro-right viral AI clips that often depict politicians on the left in an ugly light – withdrew his candidacy, saying Badenoch had instead asked him to become an adviser to the party's culture and integration commission, focusing on how young men become radicalised.
As pressure mounted, Badenoch said she was "sad" that Bonehill-Paine felt he "won't be given the space to explain his position and represent his community", chastising those who had called her judgment into question.
"Piling on [people who have changed] and trying to get them cancelled may be sport for other parties," she wrote on social media. "But this is a different Conservative party."
Her stance has left some in her party delighted by her persistent pugilism but others scratching their heads and looking to the door. For opponents, it has been a moment to savour, with Reform saying her support "beggars belief", while locally focused Liberal Democrats delighted in criticising Badenoch's insistence that as a councillor Bonehill-Paine would only have been "looking at parking, sorting out bins".
The embrace of Bonehill-Paine has come at a critical moment in Badenoch's leadership. Last month she embarked on a purge of the Conservative parliamentary party, writing in the Telegraph that it was "not a retirement home for failed politicians" and warning that anyone who supported net zero targets or Britain's membership of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) would be blocked from standing as a candidate in the next election.
The former minister Gavin Barwell lost the whip, and another former cabinet member, Grant Shapps, was blocked from standing again for the party. Sources said multiple Reform members had been blocked from joining the party. "To do that while welcoming this chap has definitely raised a few eyebrows," one source said.
The purge had left many young Tories and centrists politically homeless, said the former Tory activist Cody Butler, who resigned last weekend as chair of the One Nation Conservative Network and left the party. He said centrists, members worried about the climate crisis and conservation, and remainers – those who Margaret Thatcher may have referred to as "Wets" – were "running out of road".
"We keep hearing the parliamentary party has never been more united," Butler said. "But I think the real truth is the arsonists have taken control, and they're trying to set the great oak tree of Toryism alight."
Badenoch also announced this week that a Conservative government would evict foreign nationals with leave to remain from social housing, prompting Reform's Zia Yusuf to accuse her of trying to copy his party's policy, and the homelessness charity Shelter to warn the policy would "drive up homelessness and put extreme pressure on councils".
Despite the private worries of some in the Tory party, delight in Badenoch's unabashed tack rightwards is not difficult to find among the rank and file. "It's going down really well," said one MP. "The party thinks Kemi is doing brilliantly."
A senior Conservative adviser said the party was being clear on what it believed and why. "At the last election, voters would tell us they didn't know what the party stood for. Kemi is changing that," they said.
But rightwingers are not the only ones enjoying the ride. Labour sources said they had been looking on and reaching for the popcorn this week. "Just as you think Kemi might finally be sorting out their tent, she spends a week focused on totally irrelevant nonsense," said one. "Nothing trumps a person's instincts and hers are just wrong."
In the yellow corner, gleeful Lib Dems point out that under Badenoch the Tories seem to be showing little interest in taking back any of the 60 seats they lost directly to their party in 2024 as part of a drubbing in which the Conservatives shed a record 251 seats.
Once the near unchallenged flagbearer of middle England, the Conservatives now have zero MPs in Oxfordshire, for the first time since 1777. A committed leftwing hiker could walk from Land's End to London without passing through...