British Conservatives find their new Margaret Thatcher

British Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch announced this month that her party will no longer allow its parliamentarians and candidates to support “net zero” environmental policies or continued membership within the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

The controversial move has been widely interpreted as a “purge” of the Conservatives’ centrist voices and an extension of Badenoch’s broader efforts to revive the party by restoring its right-wing identity.

Debates about the Conservatives’ ideological purity surged after the 2024 U.K. general election, when the party – after 14 years in government – suffered its worst defeat in two centuries . Many Tory intellectuals came to agree that this defeat was deserved, as, in their eyes, the Conservatives had misgoverned and betrayed the electorate by tacitly adopting progressive values.

In their final years of power, for example, the Conservatives embraced environmentalism and managerial bureaucraticism while failing to oppose mass migration and the institutionalization of identity politics. This ideological pivot, in turn, fuelled the rise of the hard-right Reform Party, which enjoyed a near-monopoly over populist conservative ideas (e.g. mass deportations and slashing immigration ).

When Badenoch was elected as party leader in late 2024 — the sixth person to hold that position in less than nine years — she vowed to reinstate the Conservatives’ foundational values.

Rather than rush to release a detailed platform early on, she launched a “ policy renewal program ” in early 2025 that slowly and methodologically overhauled the party’s commitments and ideology. The program began with an affirmation of conservative first principles, and then spent months engaging in fact-finding, legal reviews, community consultation and debate.

Badenoch made it clear — before the renewal program even began — that she would end the United Kingdom’s commitment to reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050, as she believed the target was “impossible” and impoverishing. This not only shattered a longstanding cross-partisan consensus on combatting climate change, but repudiated the legacy of former Conservative prime minister Theresa May, who had legislatively enshrined this target in 2019.

Yet, notwithstanding this issue, Badenoch’s slow-moving approach was widely perceived as a gamble, as critics believed it allowed Reform to further siphon away Conservative support. Some Tory MPs even plotted to have her replaced after the party fared poorly in country-wide municipal elections that spring.

When asked about her strategy in October 2025, just before the party’s annual convention, Badenoch affirmed that she would take “time to get it right” and not “rush out” new policies, as being conscientious would “pay off eventually” despite causing a short-term dip in the polls. She argued that Reform would not deliver on its promises as “they hadn’t done the actual work” of putting together a practical plan.

Badenoch’s patience started to pay off that month when she announced the results of a months-long legal review she had set up to investigate whether certain international legal agreements constrain British interests.

The review found that the ECHR — which the United Kingdom has been a signatory of since 1951 — undermined, among other things, the country’s ability to impose harsher prison sentences and to deport illegal immigrants and foreign criminals. On this basis, Badenoch firmly committed to fully leaving (rather than just selectively ignoring ) the ECHR and used the review to quell centrist critics.

As her policy positions continued to solidify (e.g. deficit reduction, immigration crackdowns, ending diversity quotas), Badenoch’s strong communication skills attracted domestic and international attention. She has often been lauded as an unusually articulate and confident orator, and her frank moral clarity has caused many of her parliamentary speeches — and even everyday interactions — to go viral.

By early 2026, a new consensus developed around Badenoch: she had found her stride.

At Conservative events, attendees have reportedly been brimming with newfound optimism, because they now find themselves armed with a serious – and authentically conservative – policy platform and a strong, likeable leader. Opinion polls suggest the Conservatives remain tied in second-place, lagging several points behind Reform, but Badenoch’s personal approval ratings are higher than that of any other established party leader in the country.

At the moment, British Tories generally seem to think of Badenoch as a modern-day Margaret Thatcher — the similarities between the two women are hard to miss.

Argentina, winning a football match does not mean you can have the Falklands.Hands Off! pic.twitter.com/Xu70S4Mxcp

— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) July 17, 2026

Thatcher entered politics as an outsider — the daughter of a lower-middle class grocer — so, too, did Badenoch enter parliament with an apolitical engineering degree and an even more compelling back story.

Badenoch was born in the U.K. but grew up in her parents’ native Nigeria. She returned to the U.K. at 16, bringing with her a deep appreciation for the lingering advantages of traditional British values.

“Unlike many colleagues born after 1980, I was unlucky enough to live under socialist policies. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone…” she told The Spectator in a 2017 profile , recounting how she did her homework by candlelight and fetched water in heavy rusty buckets.

Like her predecessor, Badenoch is blunt, determined and uncompromising. She, too, became leader when the Conservatives were exhausted and vulnerable to collapse.

And just as Thatcher had to vanquish the “wet” (centrist) elements of her party, so, too, has Badenoch imposed discipline amid rebellion – as demonstrated by her recent purge of net zero and ECHR supporters.

Some critics have complained about these red lines – most notably MP Gavin Barwell, who lost the party whip after he accused her of turning the Conservatives into a “Reform tribute act” — yet they appear to be popular with the British conservative press . More importantly, most centrist MPs have fallen in line .

Badenoch differs from Thatcher, however, in that she faces challenges from the right as well as the left. Reform continues to lead in the polls, but convincing their supporters to defect — and to forget the Conservatives’ recent misgovernance — will prove difficult, as the policy platforms of both parties overlap considerably.

You cannot regulate your way to growth. You cannot tax your way to prosperity. And you cannot build a stronger economy by making life harder for the people who create jobs.Here are five things that have to change. pic.twitter.com/FRKkxMF3FM

— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) June 18, 2026

To this end, Badenoch has argued that the Conservatives have the competence and experience to implement the kinds of reforms that Reform can only promise. Further, she has demonstrated that conservative populism can be measured and humane.

Nothing illustrates the latter point better than last month’s scandal over the murder of Henry Nowak — an 18-year-old British university student who bled to death in police handcuffs after his stabber, a Sikh man, falsely accused him of racial abuse.

While Reform leader Nigel Farage urged “ pure, cold rage ,” Badenoch calmly but firmly condemned the injustice , called for social unity and emphasized the importance of colourblind equality under the law.

It was a judicious response Thatcher would have been proud of.

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