Kemi Badenoch has told her shadow cabinet not to expect any big Conservative policy announcements for the next two years.
At a meeting with shadow ministers on Tuesday, the Tory leader said she would not announce any detailed policies until at least 2027 because the focus until then should be regaining voters’ trust.
The Sun, which first reported the development, said Badenoch presented MPs with a three-year programme for turning around her party’s fortunes under which it would not set out its plans for government before the end of 2027.
A Conservative spokesperson said on Wednesday: “What you can see is, as we did with the immigration announcement last month, is that we will show you our direction of travel.
“So we said that we will have a strict numerical cap [on immigration], we said that we’ll have a restriction on visas, but we’re not setting out the fine details of those because we’re not creating policies for 2028 in 2025.”
In a speech in November, Badenoch admitted that the Conservatives had failed on immigration and committed to setting a “strict numerical cap”.
But in an interview last month she stressed that she would not be rushed into any policy decisions because there was no “quick fix” after her party’s election defeat. She dismissed concerns that not announcing policies left a vacuum to be exploited by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Badenoch told the BBC: “Reform is saying stuff because it hasn’t thought it all through. You can give easy answers if you haven’t thought it all through. I do the thinking and what people are going to get with new leadership under me is thoughtful Conservatism, not kneejerk analysis.”
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There are differing views in the party about this gradual approach. Ben Houchen, the Tory mayor of Tees Valley, said last month he would like to “see more” from Badenoch on migration and that the issue was “something you really need to get a hold of … or someone else will fill that void”.
Houchen told the BBC in December: “I’m hoping that the Conservative party under Kemi Badenoch will start to be able to create these narratives. My concern has always been with the Conservative party that we end up going off into our own little bubble for six months, a year or two, while we try and figure it out.”
