Kemi Badenoch has today published The Right Way, a major statement of Conservative principles setting out how the Party will govern Britain differently if returned to office.
A new dividing line has been drawn in politics. Andy Burnham has misdiagnosed Britain’s problem. His answers - greater government control, more government interventions, more decisions taken by the state - are wrong, wrong and wrong.
Britain’s problem is not that government does too little. It has taken responsibility for too much and forgotten how to deliver.
Published at Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, The Right Way comes fifty years after Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party published The Right Approach in October 1976 and applies its lessons to the challenges facing Britain today.
That document was published three years before the 1979 Conservative manifesto and subsequent election victory. Rather than beginning with a shopping list of policies, it established the intellectual foundations from which the policies of the next Conservative government would follow.
The Right Way follows the same approach. It argues that Britain has been heading in the wrong direction for far too long because of successive governments treating the symptoms rather than the causes, often to correct the very problems they themselves have created. The Right Way argues that no amount of tweaking will fix a country whose foundations require repair.
Writing in the foreword, Badenoch says the document is “modelled, deliberately, on The Right Approach, published by the Conservative Party in October 1976, and The Right Approach to the Economy from the following year”.
She writes that those documents “came before the 1979 manifesto, because the argument had to come before the programme”, adding: “They set out a diagnosis of what had gone wrong and an approach to governing from which policy could follow. We need to do the same again.”
The Right Way argues that the Conservatives cannot return to government simply by promising to administer the existing state better, or by responding to each new problem with another announcement, target or spending commitment. This was how we lost the last election.
Instead, the Party must first be clear about what it believes, what has gone wrong with Britain and the principles it will use to make decisions in government, including when confronted by problems nobody can predict.
At the heart of The Right Way are a series of principles which will guide the next Conservative government:
The document applies those principles as well as Kemi’s engineering mindset that means looking for causes rather than quick fixes across the economy, energy, government and wider society, providing the intellectual framework from which the Conservatives’ programme for government will be built.
Writing in the foreword, Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch says:
“I want to clarify not just what Conservatives propose to do now, but how or why we would decide differently when circumstances change. If someone picks The Right Way up in fifty years’ time, I want them to understand what we believed had gone wrong with Britain, and how we thought government could put it right.
“That means being honest about how we got here. If the tone is harsher on Conservative governments it is not because I believe Labour knows any better - quite the opposite. Labour goes wrong when it follows its principles; we go wrong when we fail to follow ours.
“The Right Way is not about Labour. In any case, Britain’s problems did not begin with the 2024 Labour Government. Some began under earlier Labour governments and became worse under Conservative ones. Others arose because assumptions shared across the political spectrum went unchallenged for too long.
“We promised lower immigration without a strategy for delivering it. Net Zero was legislated for before we had an economically feasible route to get there. We left the European Union without the economic plan that should have gone with it. The path to failure was paved with announcements, targets and good intentions.”
Badenoch argues that the purpose of the document is to reclaim the intellectual foundations of the Conservative Party and develop an approach to government before returning to office.
The publication has been met with acclaim by a number of prominent intellectuals:
Historian and bestselling author Professor Robert Tombs said:
“The Right Way, Kemi Badenoch’s first substantial analysis of what is wrong and what needs to be done, is impressive. She begins with a coherent statement of principles, and from there goes on to the actions those principles demand. It is clear, well written, and free of jargon and vacuous political clichés. She looks unsparingly and in concrete detail at what has gone wrong with our system of government, and recognizes that restoring it will be the first and formidable task. It is possible that I am too impressed by clarity of language and boldness of thought – but then, without those things nothing is possible.”
Leading historian and author Professor Sir Niall Ferguson of the Hoover Institution said:
“50 years ago, Britain was in a mess. The Right Approach pointed the way out of it. Today, with the country facing even bigger problems — excessive debt, an energy crisis, paralyzing over-regulation, a failing immigration system, cash-starved armed forces — Kemi Badenoch delivers The Right Way. Instead of empty vibes and slogans, she gives us tough diagnosis and clearcut prescription. Anyone who yearns to see broken Britain fixed will read it and cheer.”
Leading journalist and commentator Juliet Samuel said:
“A serious and radical essay explaining why Britain so badly needs a counter revolution.”
Member of the House of Lords and cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government Peter (Lord) Lilley said:
“The Right Way is an immensely important document – as crucial as was Margaret Thatcher’s Right Approach, as a stepping stone to government equipped to achieve national renewal. It rightly affirms the principles driving policy, identifies the key challenges and spells out concrete policies: a contrast to Burnham’s vacuous slogans.”
Member of the House of Lords and author of the bestselling ‘Churchill: Walking with Destiny’ Andrew (Lord) Roberts said:
“Kemi Badenoch has laid down the gauntlet with this concise, hard-hitting and well-researched book, with its unmistakeable echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s own personal set of beliefs. Underlying political philosophies have historically always mattered much more than mere day-to-day policy-making, because they show which politicians have a star to guide by, and thus the capacity for true statesmanship. With this book – clearly the product of profound thought – Ms Badenoch has set out the battle lines between the open, entrepreneurial economics of the future and Mr Burnham’s collectivist economics of the 1970s.”
Political philosopher and bestselling author Professor John Gray said:
“Fifty years ago, Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher presented a rigorous and radical alternative to a failing postwar consensus. Today, Kemi Badenoch has applied the same bold and unflinching approach to a country facing an economic and geopolitical storm. In a time full of soundbites and vibes, The Right Way is fresh thinking about the daunting problems that face us all.”
