Keep Kemi Badenoch so we don’t look like Chelsea Football Club, say Tory donors

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Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative leadership has received a boost from Tory donors, who warn that getting rid of it would make the party look like an unstable football team.

“Comparisons are being made to Chelsea,” one said, referring to the football club which has appointed four permanent coaches in less than five years.

Badenoch has consolidated its position in Conservatives A conference in Manchester this week with a confident speech ended with a crowd-pleasing £9bn promise to scrap stamp duty on major home purchases.

However, the party languishes in third place in opinion polls, usually polling around 16-17 per cent, and faces a modest election in next May’s elections for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and the English assemblies.

But behind the scenes, the party’s money brokers were sending a strong signal that they wanted to give Badenoch It’s time to prove herself, despite speculation that she could face a leadership bid after next May’s election.

Lord Howard Leigh, a senior Tory treasurer, said the mood at a Tory donor dinner in Manchester this week was entirely behind the leader. “There was a huge wave of support for her,” he said.

Lord Michael Ashcroft, a Tory donor and long-time supporter of Badenoch, told colleagues he was convinced she was the right person to lead the party. “Michael tells everyone that if she goes, he will leave the party and never come back,” a friend said.

Another donor said: “We would be angry if the party changed its leader again. Comparisons are being made to Chelsea.”

Despite the defeat suffered by the Conservative Party in last year’s general elections and its subsequent decline, the party still continues to draw some strength from its donor base.

The Conservative Party also raised more donations than any other major political party in the UK in the first three months of 2025, recording £3.3 million in gifts. In the same period, Labor received £2.3 million, while Reform and the Liberal Democrats received just £1.5 million.

Asked why people kept donating money, a senior Tory official involved in the party’s finances said: “They’re buying while stocks are cheap. People who come now know they’ll be appreciated.”

Party donors attended the Treasurer’s reception and dinner on Tuesday night at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, before the biggest donors – typically those who donate more than £50,000 a year – headed off to attend a dinner hosted by shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride.

One attendee at the selectmen’s dinner said: “The mood was very good. People liked Mel Stride’s speech, and there was certainly a consensus that the party would be crazy to remove Kimi.”

“You might say the conference is a bit self-selecting, but the donors I’ve spoken to over the past 24 hours were also very impressed with Kimi’s speech, and the stamp duty pledge. ‘Game-changing’ seems to be the catchphrase.”

“The party held its best convention of the season by a mile,” said David Ross, one of the party’s chief treasurers and founder of Carphone Warehouse. “It was good to see Kimmy and her team start to put in place policies that the public can understand and get behind.”

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, is widely seen as a manipulator in favor of the Tory leadership, but he has kept his ambitions in check in Manchester, an admission that the notoriously regicide party is not yet in the mood to throw another leader under the bus.

However, if the Conservatives’ fortunes do not improve by May, Badenoch knows there will be new rumblings about her leadership and memories of her first conference speech as Conservative leader will be a distant memory.