There is little advantage in attempting to predict the line of inquiry adopted by Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
For one, Badenoch has made dodging the news agenda a regular feature of her session strategy. Opposition leaders, especially those early in their tenure, have historically exploited PMQs for its headline-making potential. It’s an opportunity to secure a series of on-the-record responses from the prime minister to some salient, uncomfortable issue. This is the process by which an opposition leader can build credibility, and slowly erode the government’s own. But not Badenoch.
Secondly, there is the fundamental but outstanding question as to the Conservative Party’s very relevance. According to recent polling, Badenoch’s party has settled into a consistent third place — behind Labour and Reform UK. Keir Starmer and his health secretary, Wes Streeting, have both stated explicitly in recent days that they view Reform as Labour’s principal opponent. In these terms, Badenoch’s questioning serves merely as a forum for Starmer to advance his criticisms of Nigel Farage, or as a warm-up when the Reform chief’s name is on the order paper (as was the case today).
This afternoon, Badenoch took Starmer to task for Labour’s economic record, with a particular focus on unemployment. Across her six questions, the Conservative leader sought a commitment from the prime minister that unemployment would be lower in a year’s time; she cited the struggles of a department store which is having a “Rachel Reeves closing down sale”; and rubbished Labour’s employment rights bill as “deeply damaging to growth.”
The Conservative leader maintained a clear and conspicuous distance from the issue of the day: immigration. The end result was another performance that will fail to trouble Westminster’s headline-writers.
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But Badenoch’s silence is explicable. The Conservative Party is caught in a crippling catch-22 on migration — one never more discernible than when Badenoch appears at the despatch box.
The Tory leader must choose: major on migration and find her party’s recent record in government regurgitated back, together with a series of unsparing attack lines. Or refuse to engage in the debate, and ensure her party’s reputation remains of its original nature.
In other words, Badenoch cannot detoxify the Conservative Party’s reputation on migration without mentioning it. And she cannot mention migration without Reform and Labour referring to her party’s toxic reputation.
Moreover, when immigration is unmistakably, indisputably the issue of the day, any choice to side-step it is necessarily a conscious one — a point that can itself be weaponised at Badenoch’s expense. By ignoring the topic, Badenoch is in effect admitting the Conservatives have nothing useful to say.
This dynamic speaks to the dismal state the Conservative Party finds itself in: political zugzwang, where any move by the leader inevitably lessens the Tories’ standing.
The observation is under-covered: Badenoch does not dodge the news agenda because she misunderstands it — she does so because she is, after all, well aware of her party’s manifold weaknesses. And yet, the act of ignoring the day’s defining issue is simultaneously one of profound weakness.
Keir Starmer, for all his present woes, does not find himself in such a sorry position. The frontbench exchange flatters Labour. The Conservative leader’s contributions conceal, rather than reveal, the prime minister’s problems. Starmer wins, in effect, by default.
All this said, there is still plenty of room for Badenoch to make in-the-moment mistakes, errors on which Starmer can capitalise. Today, the prime minister spent the session goading Badenoch into criticising the government’s recent trade successes. Whatever question was put, Starmer would extol the virtues of the UK-US and UK-India trade agreements.
Badenoch took the bait. The Conservative leader ridiculed the PM’s “tiny tariff deal” with the US which, she said, has put the UK in a “worse position than in March”.
The aside provided Starmer with just enough material to launch into a scripted comeback. The prime minister, voice bellowing, called on Badenoch to “get the train to Solihull” and speak to workers at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR); there, the Tory leader could tell them that she “would rip up the deal that protects their jobs”.
Then, Starmer continued, Badenoch should “travel across” to Scunthorpe and tell the town’s steel workers she would “rip up the deal that saves their jobs”.
The PM added: “And if she’s got time, go up to Scotland and talk to the whisky distilleries and tell them she’d rip up the deal that’s creating 1,200 jobs for them… and then come back here next week, and tell us what reaction she got”.
Starmer, for what it is worth, also came armed with some well-judged attack lines. At one point, he said the Conservatives were collectively succumbing “to a kind of brain rot”.
He concluded: “A once great political party is sliding into brain-dead oblivion.”
The statements were successive hammer blows, when a mere gust of wind was required. Badenoch, politically flimsy and exposed, came toppling down.
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Today’s session of PMQs proves that Starmer and Streeting are correct in their aforementioned assessment. In every sense — electoral, political and parliamentary — it is Reform UK that poses Labour the greatest challenge.
It is telling of Reform UK’s relative strength, that when Farage took to his feet this afternoon, no observer was in any doubt as to the substance of his question. True to form, the Reform leader urged Starmer to declare a “national security emergency” to combat small boat Channel crossings.
Farage began: “We at Reform, a party that is alive and kicking, very much enjoyed your speech on Monday. You seem to be learning a very great deal from us.
“But can I encourage you to please go further…. Since the speech on Monday, 1,000 young undocumented young males have crossed the English Channel.”
Starmer responded that the “situation is serious” and turned his fire on the Conservative Party”. The last government, he said, “lost control of the borders.”
The prime minister added: “We are taking powers. The borders bill, precisely to his point, is the first bill to give terrorism like powers to law enforcement, precisely so that we can get in before the crimes are committed, before people get to this country.
“This is the most far-reaching provision ever for law enforcement to defend and secure our borders. That is why it is extraordinary that he, of all people, voted against it.”
The exchange itself did not advance the debate on immigration, in either policy or rhetorical terms. But Farage’s quip that he “very much enjoyed” Starmer’s speech on Monday will exacerbate the unease that grips Labour.
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.
