Our Survey: Slightly more members say the Party is stronger after defections to Reform – but they think there will be more

A rumour rumbled through the Westminster bubble this weekend, via a story in the Daily Mail, that Kemi Badenoch is planning a reshuffle, to remove some “dead wood” from the shadow cabinet and to promote some of her younger rising stars.

The suggestion was that shadow home office minister Katie Lam, a new ConservativeHome columnist, was to be ‘bought off’ with a promotion because she was on ‘defection watch’

Chris Philp, Shadow Home Secretary was on the TV to dismiss the story, which made reasonable sense not just because he, Mel Stride and Priti Patel were named in the article as being ‘at risk.’ The story has been hard to stand up.

As you’d expect we’ve dug a bit deeper. Sometimes an off the record chat about things a ‘party insider’ would like to happen, are written up and reported as things that will happen. It’s always been part of the nature of political reporting. I can only say, without offending our readers that the Leader of the Opposition’s aides gave me their reaction to the entire story. It rhymed with ‘concrete rollocks‘.

Having been mislead, as many were, by Robert Jenrick’s plans for the future before he was sacked and left, we did some checking. Suffice to say a number of people responded. Katie Lam believes the story to be a fabrication and had had no conversations about any of it. Friends went further to point out she has consistently said that she’s no fan of ambition over disloyalty. A point that has been echoed by a number of one time supporters of Jenrick who’ve told me they still feel astonishingly let down by him.

Members however have their own views on what the defections of Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman, and Andrew Rosindell have had on the Conservative Party, given their move to Reform UK, a party still consistently ahead in the polls.

Only four per cent more of them think the defections have strengthened the party, at 33.7 per cent. A further 16.3% think the defections have strengthened both parties. That signals something the party should already know: There are a significant – and not to be discounted – number of party members who are still waiting and watching to  see what happens with either party, before they chose who might ultimately get their backing.

The 29.4 per cent of members who think the defections have weakened the party are not entirely a surprise either. Remember at the New Year, though Kemi badenoch was voted our Conservative Politician of 2025 (before Jenrick was sacked), Jenrick was voted shadow cabinet member of the year (Badenoch not included) and Suella Braverman our Backbencher of the year.  ConservativeHome itself does not have a vote. It’s not just the 29 percent, but note the 14.2 percent who think the defections have weakened both parties. More one suspects a reflection of those who think that Reform’s appeal will suffer from being largely former Tories at the top, and yet those that left had views and skills they think the party needed.

So do they think there will be more senior defections? Yes.

43.7 per cent said it was likely and 12 per cent highly likely. Which begs the question of those 57 per cent who exactly do think it might be? The Daily Mail may have a view, but this survey does not give clues to that. Nor does it specify whether amongst those responders who think it likely or highly likely, there are those who wish it to happen. A scenario the leadership should at least hold in their mind.

It may also be a projection of timings. Many a senior Tory has told me of plausible scenarios that might unfold if Reform stay far enough out in front and Tory polling stays stubbornly where it is. Not inevitable by any means but neither to be dismissed. One of those scenarios is that Conservative MPs who start to think that situation will stay as it is until 2029 might just jump at a later date. Farage might say he has this ‘cut off date’, but I’d discount that. He does, for now.

There’s also a reason I’d be suspicious of a new set of defections right now. The biggest criticism aimed at Reform and Farage personally is his closeness to Donald Trump – who won’t be President in 2029 – and Labour have been falling over themselves to suggest anyone criticising their woeful vacillation over defensive planning and spending is just “a war monger who supports Trump and illegal wars”

There’s a reason for that. They desperately want to persuade the public to view the Conservatives and Reform as ‘Trump’s poodles’. Their social media outriders use suspiciously similar phrases and lines to that effect. It is the counter punch to them knowing their military and diplomatic posture hides their fear that many of their own voters will defect to the Greens if they don’t try to show they are more anti-Trump and anti-Israel.

We’ll test this defection question again, once the May elections are over.