The inside story of how Kemi Badenoch masterminded ‘a heist’ in ‘the forgotten by-election’

A.With three by-elections approaching this week, one at Makerfield in Greater Manchester and two in Scotland, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s top team faced a problem: how to turn their leader’s rising popularity into electoral success.

Labor desperately needed a victory to show that its real alternative was its own party, not the rebellious Reform UK.

With this in mind, his team focused on one of the seats; They deliberately did nothing at Makerfield, instead deciding to invest all their resources in Aberdeen South, which SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn vacated after returning to Holyrood.

The plan was to secretly win the race that few people talked about.

Tory chief executive Lord Mark McInnes made clear to MPs and senior party members that it was essential that Aberdeen South “remain forgotten in the by-election”.

The risks were high. Since her make-or-break speech to the Tory conference in October, Ms Badenoch has transformed from “likely to be replaced” party leader to the party leader with the best personal ratings of any current party leader in the UK.

He was helped by his only serious rival to become leader of the Conservatives, Robert Jenrick, by defecting to Reform, and the collapse of Keir Starmer’s government left him looking like a giant in parliament with a series of powerful interventions.

But the Conservative Party remained stubbornly low in the polls, averaging 19 per cent; It was a full five points below where it was when Ms Badenoch was leader.

The failed Tory brand came to the fore even more in May’s local elections, when they lost 563 council seats, almost half of the seats they had defended.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK continued to hold a strong lead in national polls, still commanding Tory support and finishing second in Wales and Scotland, winning 1,454 council seats.

Even if the Tory brand and not Ms Badenoch was the problem, there was plenty of time for patience to wear thin and discussions to find a new leader to begin.

But the task at hand seemed impossible. The Conservatives last won a Westminster by-election in Scotland in 1967, taking Glasgow Pollok from Labor in a shock victory.

As one insider noted, this was just a year after England won the World Cup and “the years of pain were almost as long.”

But Lord McInnes and Mrs Badenoch were determined to ensure Aberdeen South “came home”.

They chose a solid candidate, Douglas Lumsden; A member of the Scottish Parliament for the North East of Scotland, he was a good party loyalist with no dodgy social background and knew the seat inside and out.

The incident was later described by another Tory insider as a “robbery” against the SNP, which has governed Scotland for 19 years and defended the seat.

There was some hope there; The Conservative Party won the seat in 2017 despite Ross Thomson having now defected from Reform. But the SNP were strong favourites.

The Conservatives wanted them to stay that way and focus more on other by-elections in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, Scotland.

With national media eyes focused on Andy Burnham’s Reform match at Makerfield, Lord McInnes gave firm instructions saying it was “probably” an SNP victory.

They then quietly set out to hold a referendum on net zero, Ed Miliband and the SNP’s anti-oil and gas drilling policies in the North Sea. Ms Badenoch was there three times without causing much trouble, enlisting shadow energy minister Claire Coutinho for the final PMQs against David Lammy to get the message across.

As doubts began to emerge days before that they could win, several phone calls were made to check the story.

IndependentTory sources, like others, said: “It’s very unlikely. If the unionist vote goes our way we can squeeze it in. But we don’t actually expect it to be that close.”

Meanwhile, an SNP source confirmed they too do not believe there is a real threat: “The Tories think they have a chance but we should win it easily.”

But there was an additional factor.

The scandal involving former SNP leader Peter Murrell has overshadowed the entire contest, along with ongoing questions about his estranged wife, former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon.

It soon became clear that this was indeed a robbery as Conservative votes began to pile up as counting began at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC).

In the end, with a turnout of 38 percent, the Conservative Party not only won, but also defeated its rivals with a majority of 6,050 and 49.5 percent of the vote. The SNP came second with 26.8 per cent of the vote, while the Conservatives came second with a margin of 25 per cent.

More importantly, the Reformation received only 8.6 per cent of the vote in one part of Scotland; in many predictions they were expected to replace the Conservative Party.

Ms Badenoch was there early in the morning to lead the celebrations and consider it a personal victory.

A source close to him said: Independent: “This could be a turning point for us. This is an extraordinary victory and Kemi has something to which our comeback can be attributed.”

While Makerfield proved that people were trying to vote tactically to prevent Reform from winning, voters were also tactically willing to vote Conservative.

Another source said: “Kemi needed to own it. She’s been there three times, this was her victory. People can now see that it wasn’t just good performances at the PMQs but a solid win.”

As Mr Farage licked his wounds at Makerfield, he tried to dismiss the Conservative Party’s victory as the only evidence that they could “win in small parts of the UK”.

But it was hard not to conclude that while Ms Badenoch emerged with a morale-boosting win in the most important week of byelections in decades, she ended up empty-handed.