Is there any substance to Kemi’s ‘conservative realism’?

Kemi Badenoch set out her world view in a speech this morning at Policy Exchange. As protesting tractors blared their horns outside, inside the room the Tory leader was sounding the alarm for the post-Cold War order. The UK, she warned, faces a ‘bitter reckoning’ unless it wakes up to the fact that ‘it is no longer 1995.’ With threats growing at home and abroad, too much focus had been placed on values at the expense of interests. Instead, Badenoch argued, ‘conservative realism’ was needed – with a hard-headed, realistic approach to different spheres. Watching in attendance was the historian Niall Ferguson, whose warning about countries spending more on debt interest than ddefence, was quoted by the speaker approvingly.

What does that mean then in terms of top-line policy? Badenoch gave two examples: cancelling the Chagos deal and increasing defence spending beyond the 2.5 per cent target by 2030. But, unwilling to talk detail at this early stage of parliament, the Tory leader preferred to direct much of her ire at international bodies ‘taken over by activists or by autocratic regimes’.