The British Right Is Broken — And Neither Farage Nor Badenoch Can Save It Alone

A new approach to right-wing politics is needed - we must embrace a wider ecosystem of ideas and institutions that can shape us. Otherwise, the Left will keep winning and Britain will keep declining.

Let’s be honest. The British right is broken. The Conservatives are managing decline. Reform is playing dress-up. Unless something changes, Britain is going to drift.

At this point, I have no intention of leaving the Conservative Party. I still believe in what it is supposed to stand for. Even if recent leadership has betrayed it, what keeps me here is the grassroots. Without them, I would have gone already.

The truth is, most members’ gatherings feel more like group therapy . “How do you think it’s going?” “How do you feel about things?” My answer is always the same. “Terrible and absolutely dire.” That about sums it up.

Look at the names floated for the future. Robert Jenrick sounds convincing on much, in my view, he is the most talented of the pack. Until he drags every conversation back to migration, which, as former Immigration Minister during Boriswave is his least credible topic. The husband of an immigrant and host of Ukrainian refugees speaking of a need for net emigration for a decade feels not just inauthentic, but hypocritical.

James Cleverly is perfectly nice, but he is the classic Heineken politician. Everyone’s mate, big on banter, little on long-term view. Kemi Badenoch? I like Kemi. I backed her in 2022 and 2024 because I thought she could shake things up. She could have been our Milei, but her leadership has been a let-down.

Badenoch has moments of genius: when she mocked BBC Presenters for asking if she had watched Adolescence and taking Starmer to task at PMQs on the occasions she has landed a win. But madness too: saying maternity pay is “excessive”, claiming she is an Essex girl but not a Nigerian girl and, of course, the vacuum she has left which Farage has occupied. At present, Badenoch’s madness-to-genius ratio appears unfavourable. A shame as, like crying and laughing, the two aren’t that far apart!

The Tory problem is slogans without seriousness. Take Grant Shapps. After the London Tube strikes, he tweeted, “It’s time to automate the lot of it.” This from the man who was Transport Secretary for three years and did nothing of the sort. That is Conservatism today. Big words today about problems ignored yesterday.

Meanwhile, the economy is flat. Growth stalled in July. Manufacturing shrank. Services barely moved. NHS waiting lists are over 7.4 million. Government spending eats nearly half of GDP. Debt is over 100 per cent of GDP for the first time since the 1960s. Taxes are at a seventy-year high. After 14 years of Tory rule and 1 year of Labour disaster. Few can tell the difference, and that’s the problem.

Reform is no antidote. Nadine Dorries wrote the Online Safety Act and now fronts a party whose big idea is to repeal it. Suella Braverman presided over some of the highest immigration numbers in history. Net migration hit 672,000 in the year to June 2023, and Reform parades her around like she is the solution. David Frost, who signed the Brexit deal that kept us bound to the ECHR, is now treated as one of their intellectual heavyweights on leaving it. One minute, they are cheering speakers who say migrant hotels should be burned down. The next Nigel Farage is begging for police intervention when violent language is aimed at him.

The future of the British right cannot be solved within the Conservative Party alone. On its current trajectory, the party will not return to power. That is the truth. Take London as an example, the Tory brand in London is toxic, and the Mayoral candidate selection process is farcical. I say this as a London Tory. If Reform were to put forward Laila Cunningham as their mayoral candidate, the London Conservatives should swallow their pride and back her. The only realistic way to end Sadiq Khan’s reign is to unite behind a single centre-right candidate.

Cunningham is a professional success story, a good communicator, principled and a patriotic British Muslim. Until recently, she was a Conservative. Cunningham is clever and likely moved to Reform because she read the tea leaves: the polling trend is against the Conservatives, and the odds of power are better with Nigel Farage in London than with Kemi Badenoch or CCHQ. The Reform branding helps. It creates distance from a party that has lost credibility.

This is why a new approach to right-wing politics is so badly needed. Party politics alone cannot deliver it. The Conservatives are like a distressed asset, staggering along, clinging to yesterday’s playbook. Reform is a cool but chaotic Series B venture play: eccentric, charismatic leadership, occasionally effective, but without the intellectual depth or institutional grounding to reach its potential. On their own, neither will succeed.

The only way forward is through the wider ecosystem of ideas and institutions that can shape a new Right. Think tanks like the Institute of Economic Affairs, Policy Exchange, the Centre for Policy Studies, the TaxPayers’ Alliance, and the Prosperity Institute (formerly Legatum) are doing the hard work of policy renewal. Steve Baker’s Fighting for a Free Future adds a moral and cultural backbone to this mix, rooted not just in economics but in values. These organisations are where the real battles of ideas are being fought, where the foundations of a post-party renewal of the right will be laid.

Immigration and integration expose both parties. The Conservatives talk tough but delivered record numbers. Reform shouts loudly and even sketches a convincing plan to cut legal and illegal migration based on a Net Zero I can get behind. On integration, on how you actually bring communities together once people are here, they have sweet fanny Adams.

The Conservatives are no better. I have asked MPs what their plan is for integration. They shrug and say, “That’s something we need to think about, but we also need to stop making it worse by cutting immigration.” For crying out loud. Even cows can walk and chew at the same time. Why can’t MPs think about immigration and integration at the same time?

Britain’s problem is not only economic or demographic. It is cultural. We have lost our cultural Christianity. For centuries, it grounded us, gave us a shared sense of right and wrong, a duty to one another. Without it, politics has collapsed into two dead ends. Technocratic management on one side. The grievance theatre of the woke right and the woke left on the other.

Reform has tried to fill the vacuum by copying MAGA’s religious shtick. It is an American bastardisation of Protestantism that has never belonged here and never will. Our traditions are deeper, quieter, and more authentic. They do not need to be shouted from a stage.

This is where Steve Baker is different. He wears his faith honestly. We share the same faith, but more importantly, the same belief that it has to be lived, not performed. A faith that inspires freedom, fairness, service, and a full life, not something to be wheeled out for a speech or a slogan.

Compare that to Farage. He bangs on about defending “Judeo-Christian values,” but admits he is a “lapsed Anglican” who does not go to church and has “put faith at the back of his mind.” To preach Christianity in politics while neglecting it in your own life is theatre, not conviction.

Steve lives his values. That is why I am joining him in Fighting for a Free Future. He has always stood for principle even when it cost him. This is not about Westminster factions. It is about building the moral, intellectual and spiritual foundation for something better. A Britain where liberty, smart government, free enterprise and cultural confidence replace drift, double standards and decay.

I regret having come to this point. I regret hoping the Conservatives would rediscover their courage. I regret thinking Reform might grow into something serious. Regret does not make me passive. It fires me up.

I still believe in Britain. I still believe freedom is worth fighting for. I still believe we can build something new, something serious, something lasting.

We need a British Milei. Not a copy, but someone with the courage to tell the truth, break the taboos and lead with principle.

Britain does not need more managers. It needs fighters. It does not need opportunists. It needs builders. Leaders with conviction, not pantomime. That is why I am joining Steve Baker in Fighting for a Free Future.

If not us, then who? If not now, then when? The time for drift is over. The time for excuses is over. The time for freedom, fairness, service and prosperity has come.

Albie Amankona is a broadcaster, financial analyst and political activist. He is the co-founder of Conservatives Against Racism and a member of the Conservatives LGBT+ National Executive. He regularly appears across broadcast media and can be followed on X through @albieamankona.