Enjoying the implosion of the Tories? That's understandable but completely wrong | Zoe Williams

"Kemi Badenoch left the crowd unmoved when she addressed her conference, even as she threw out the red meat of migrant-baiting she thought they wanted. It's not so much that they'd all woken up with a renewed sense of humanity; more that they didn't believe she'd ever be in a position to deliver it. It was, in effect, fake vegan meat. Tories hate that."

"What next for the group with a decent case to make for itself as the most historically successful democratic party in the world? Some are having another squiz at Robert Jenrick, who was a hard no at the start of the night but now it's the end, and everyone else has left. Others are creating a buzz around Katie Lam, a 34-year-old MP of the 2024 intake, who looks like a Shires Tory while wallpapering her socials with anti-migrant content."

"Could she be the figurehead to beat back Reform, now outpolling the Conservatives by 20 points? Is there a word for beating your rivals by becoming exactly like them? And, if there isn't, surely we could borrow one from martial arts? If you're enjoying any of this, in a how-the-mighty-are-fallen way, in a serves-them-right-for-austerity way, that is understandable but absolutely bananas."

"You don't even have to look at the US to know this, nor read Daniel Ziblatt's seminal 2017 book, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy: every one of your synapses is screaming it. The mainstream right is the essential firewall against the far right. Ziblatt's thesis is that democracies survive by keeping the propertied and powerful happy. I'm not wild about it as an organising principle."

Kemi Badenoch failed to energise the conference despite using migrant-baiting rhetoric, prompting perceptions that she could not deliver. Party figures are being reconsidered, including Robert Jenrick and rising MP Katie Lam, who combines traditional Tory imagery with anti-migrant messaging. Reform currently outpolls the Conservatives by about 20 points, raising questions about whether copying rivals can restore support. The mainstream right is framed as a necessary firewall against the far right, drawing on Daniel Ziblatt's thesis that democracies endure by placating the propertied and powerful, though that approach now feels strained.

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