Regular conference goers will know that the conference you’re at never matches the conference you read about in the media.
Stories about empty seats just doesn’t match up with standing room only fringes. Reports about downbeat activists doesn’t reflect the general buzz of people catching up at drinks receptions, probably for the first time in 12 months.
Having said that, this was one of the quietest Conference I’ve been too for a number of years. Gone was the excitement of last year’s Leadership contest. This felt like a party still trying to find its feet, trying to work out what hit them and not quite sure which way to turn.
Reforms long shadow
And while there were plenty of speakers cracking jokes at the expense of the Labour Government, there was a sense that beyond the staging and lecterns, the real conversations were about Reform.
After all it was only a couple of weeks prior that Danny Kruger had jumped ship, taking most of the party completely by surprised given how embedded he seemed to be in team Jenrick. And on Tuesday morning when Reform UK ominously tweeted “watch this space”, you could hear a collective gasp across the Manchester skyline.
In the end it was 20 councillors joining Reform, rather than a parliamentarian or worse several make the change! And while most of Tuesday was spent speculating on what Reform UK would do on the morning of Kemi’s speech – it turned out that Reform had run out of surprises (for now).
Rabbits out of Hats
So, expectations were not running too high on the morning of Kemi’s final address to conference. As per usual there was the overly stretched out pre-leader speakers, but at least the room was full and when Kemi finally came out there was a cheer from the faithful – partially in relief as in anticipation!
What came next was a frenetic flurry of policy announcements. Given Kemi and her teams previous assertion that they didn’t want to do detail too soon before the election, you could almost be forgiven for thinking there was one merely weeks away.
It was almost too much! Like one of those prize conveyor belts on the Generation Game, you were frantically trying to remember everything she was announcing!
And then the pace slowed, and Kemi masterfully to the audience’s delight pulled the rabbit out of the bag! Scrapping Stamp duty – not reforming it – scrapping it.
A week is a long time in politics!
It was a masterstroke reminiscent of George Osbournes 2007 Inheritance tax announcement. Political pundits on twitter were taken by surprise, and reform stopped tweeting for almost an hour.
Suddenly activists had a spring in their step and party WhatsApp groups stopped being doom scrolling generators!
As the last word of conference season, it was a potential game changer. It certainly stopped any speculation about Kemi’s future (for now), but will it cut through? That’s the unknown, but with only 8 months until the next set of local elections, it won’t be long until we find out – and the whole landscape could change all over again!
