Kemi Badenoch Launches Conservative Local Campaign at Historic Smith Square

Kemi Badenoch formally launched the Conservative Party’s local election campaign from Smith Square in Westminster on 19 March, using the historic location — which served as Conservative Central Office for decades — to frame the coming contests as a fundamental choice between responsible centre-right governance and what she described as the populist overreach of Reform UK.

In her opening address, Badenoch argued that the Conservatives remained the only party capable of delivering lower taxes, controlled public spending and effective border management without resorting to the inflammatory rhetoric she associated with Farage’s movement. She sought to present the party as having learned from its time in government while remaining distinct from both Labour’s statism and Reform’s nationalism.

The launch was carefully choreographed to project an image of a party that had absorbed the lessons of its 2024 general election defeat. Smith Square was deliberately chosen over the party’s newer Millbank premises, with campaign organisers hoping the historical resonance would reinforce a message about Conservative institutional seriousness.

Badenoch’s strategy faces a difficult arithmetic challenge. The Conservative base has been eroded from two directions simultaneously: Reform UK has peeled away voters on the right who believe the party has become too moderate on immigration and culture, while the Liberal Democrats continue to pick off more socially liberal Conservative voters in suburban and semi-rural seats across the South and South West.

The party is pinning its local election hopes largely on a handful of councils in the Home Counties and South West where Liberal Democrat challenge has not materialised as strongly as expected, and where the incumbency advantage of sitting Conservative councillors may provide some protection against the Reform surge.

Internal Conservative polling, shared with senior officials ahead of the campaign launch, suggested the party was likely to lose a significant number of seats but retain enough councillors to remain a meaningful force in local government. Officials privately hoped that limiting losses to under 300 seats would allow Badenoch to present the results as a relative success relative to the expectations built up by national polling.