February 14, 2025 - 6:30pm
Dominic Cummings has called on the public to vote for Reform UK at this year’s local elections in order to remove Kemi Badenoch as leader of the Conservative Party.
Writing on his Substack yesterday, the former Boris Johnson adviser implored British voters to “do regime change” and combat the “rot of elite culture, elite values and elite education over decades”.
In the 25,000-word post, Cummings laid out his plan of action as: “shove out Kemi ASAP, take over Tories, get Trump/Elon to facilitate a merger with Reform.” Describing the Tories as “dead in every way,” he called on voters to “push what is falling”. “Vote Reform in all local elections,” he wrote, “and help start the avalanche” to remove Badenoch.
Also floated in the essay is the idea that the Conservatives may replace their current leader with former home secretary James Cleverly. Cummings described Cleverly, a favourite of the Tories’ more moderate wing, as “a dream candidate for Farage”, saying “he’ll read his script without questions.”
These comments come after polls have begun placing Farage’s party ahead of Labour and the Conservative Party. Conscious of Reform’s surge, last week a group of Labour MPs pressured the party leadership to get tough on immigration. This was followed by Reform-style adverts boasting of Labour’s record on deportations.
Urging people to vote for Reform marks a shift in Cummings’s stance. Just six months ago, the political strategist dismissed Farage as surrounding himself with useless people. “He’s not actually there to get anything done,” Cummings said. “He profits from people being upset with the system but he doesn’t have real answers.” The feeling seemed to be mutual, with Farage referring to Cummings in 2023 as “scruffy, vindictive and vitriolic”. Yet, despite previously saying that Reform will never “solve the actual problem,” Cummings now thinks that Farage’s party “could panic and even split the Tories if they are bold and can execute”.
Much of the Substack post directed personal attacks at Badenoch. “Kemi is lazy, brittle and delusional,” Cummings wrote. “She doesn’t have any of the things needed for a serious leader.” What’s more, she is “another abysmal Tory Establishment project that’s already falling apart. She’s a gonner [sic], it’s just a question of how fast and it’ll probably be faster than the mainstream expects.” He concluded that she “has no instinct for voters”, and implored: “if you have any agency, do what you can to push Kemi out ASAP. It’s never too soon to pull the plug on a disaster.”
As for what comes next in British politics, he predicted that the defections to Reform will continue. “How many more defections do they get? I think there’ll be many including sitting MPs,” Cummings said. Just this week, after surpassing 200,000 members, Reform announced it has set up a dedicated defections unit to process applications from disillusioned MPs from other parties. Responding to rumours that the Conservatives may merge with Reform should the latter split the vote in 2029, Badenoch said that she would never support a merger with Farage’s party.
While Badenoch maintains that the Conservative Party is working hard to win back the trust of the voters, Cummings claimed that there is “no huge issue the Tories can, after 2010-24, credibly campaign on (with Kemi) that could steal Reform votes”. If she stays as leader, he said, “Labour and Tories [will] lose millions more votes to Reform than 2024.” He added that the Tories will do at least as badly if Cleverly becomes leader.
Attacking the status quo of the last three decades, Cummings lamented the “handover of political control to lawyers”, saying it contributed to “the very worst elements in Whitehall”. In that vein, he criticised former lawyer Keir Starmer, arguing that the Prime Minister “really believes in defending the old system — he believes in it with an instinctive inner faith that’s like my belief that the old system is rotten”.
But the old system cannot hold, according to Cummings. He claims that some parts of SW1 “are quietly realising the game is up and change will come.” In his view, “a much more useful way to think about politics now than Left/Right or Tory/Labour is Insider/Outsider.”
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SubscribeSo, six months ago Cummings was castigating Farage; now he’s urging voters to vote Reform. Is there any reason why anyone should take his views seriously?
Seems to me, he’s just trying to stay in the political spotlight. He may once have served a useful purpose in helping get Johnson into power for long enough to see Brexit over the line but now he’s like an immature version of Steve Bannon.
I’d agree the initial wave of enthusiasm that greeted the appointment of Badenoch to the Tory leadership seems to have rapidly subsided as she flounders to present any coherent opposition to Starmer that the public might get behind, but she’s also inherited an unenviable position, so the jury remains out for now. Cummings interventions will make little difference and he needs to think more carefully about his own lack of judgement before pronouncing on others, who’ve been elected whereas he’s not been brave enough to submit himself to the ballot box.
He is interesting. I guess, like most people who would vote for them, he sees Reform as the only meaningful alternative party, while at the same time not viewing Farage as some Godlike figure beyond criticism
Six months ago Cummings was near enough right, as he sometimes is, albeit needlessly personal. Reform had a few people and a few phone lines and a few desks.
But it is changing rapidly, and Cummings probably sees this. He is right that Reform need to appoint well and then let them work, but this will probably happen, otherwise there is no point in the whole exercise.
Money is coming to Reform. 7000 members this week. Well over 200,000 in total. These are very good early steps. People are working on policy, ( though it is fair to say that they need to sharpen their pencils on energy; today’s nonsense was a gift to Labour), others will join in.
Reform have a lot to do. But the goal is open.
Ah yes. It reminds me of the giddy optimism of the Liberal/SDP Alliance. That got over 50% in the polls at one stage. It’s leaders had gravitas and experience. It peaked in the autumn of 1981, then fell back, well before the Falklands War.
Breaking the mould of British politics is an astonishingly hard thing to do. Reform would be wise not to count chickens.
I don’t think that comparison is accurate, though many make it, particularly some Tories.
Thatcher made radical economic changes which were certain to benefit the economy. They had a clear idea of what needed doing and set about it. When the Falklands came, they knew how to handle it and had the stiffness of sinew to do it.
Labour are rudderless. They have had years to prepare and are already starting again for the second time, after less than two hundred days. Faced with any external crisis they will wobble and defer to the EU. People now genuinely loathe them, and worse still for them, they cannot see this.
The Tories are in mental breakdown mode. Many of them would be comfortable in the Lib or Labour party. Maybe forty or so of them are actual Conservatives, including the leader,who has an impossible job. They have ceded the right of centre ground, which is the natural home of most people.
There was never a massive place for the SDP, though they received mega attention in the press and on TV. That’s where the poll numbers came from.
Reform are fighting a dying Tory party, and a Labour Party which is openly governing for about 20% of the population. They managed 33.7% at the last election. No government ever goes up from it’s high point, and if they go down from it much, they are toast. They are also terrified of Reform.
None of them makes it an easy road for Reform. But the road is clear if they employ talented, professional people and empire them. They are starting to do this.
It’s not the same as the early eighties. It really isn’t
Corbyn got Labour membership up above 700k. Reform got a way to go, and we know what happened to Jezza.
Getting the echo chamber to chip in a bit of cash can in fact just spread complacency one is onto something that will secure power. The Corbyn activists thought same thing.
Corbyn got more votes than Starmer though, and against a much stronger Tory party at the time so perhaps the members did know something the MPs didn’t.
Corbyn had the Unions bouncing his numbers up. Even I was an unwitting member!
And it cost three quid if you weren’t in a union.
K, Dominic, will do
Can anyone here explain why Cummings is not in prison?
Yes
Because he hasn’t broken any law that would warrant a custodial sentence.
Next question? (No doubt an unrelated whine about UnHerd protecting Starmer or not including the Chagos surrender in every single article)
Be employed by the Prime Minister’s office as a special advisor. Have access to confidential information. Have access to the inner workings of government, and then to go on to sabotage the Prime Minister from inside his very office, and you say this is breaking no law? Seriously?
No it is not illegal, although it hardly inspires trust. As they say where I come from, “you wouldn’t show him a bird’s nest”.
No it isn’t illegal, unless he disclosed something covered by the Official Secrets Act.
It’s rather underhand and untrustworthy, but if you locked up every politician for being two faced Westminster would be a rather empty place
He would have had a security pass. You don’t believe breaching security of the Prime Minister’s office is breaking the law? You think a security pass is for play? Cummings has admitted plotting to remove Johnson. And obviously he succeeded. Why do you defend him?
I bet you’re so much fun at parties.
As if he gets invited to parties!
Yawn.
You don’t understand how politics works.
If it worked the way you think it ought to, Margaret Thatcher’s corpse would probably still be PM.
He’s another one that has no idea how the British parliamentary system works. The PM is only leader while a majority of his/her party allow them to be. Their position is much more precarious than that of a President
This issue seems to be a complete obsession of yours, even though it is now ancient history politically speaking. Politics is a rough business – who knew?!
Cummings has enough enemies, that I imagine that if he had broken any laws somebody might have tried by now to prosecute him…
Do you defend your hero by the way for the illegal parties held at Downing Street breaking the covid regulations?. Or are you very selective about law breaking?
All the players are still in place. Cummings, trying to make a comeback. Gove editor next door. Marshall running this loss making mess.
Vance today asked what European nations were defending from foreign interference and aggression. He was msking the point if there is no democracy in Europe what difference would it make if Russia took over.
Cummings has admitted to plotting to remove a democratically elected Prime Minister, while advising him in Downing Street.
If UK cared about democracy he would be in prison now, along with his fellow plotters, for bringing down Johnson.
It’s not illegal to attempt to unseat a politician, in fact it’s the very basis of how political systems operate.
The incumbent has to maintain enough support to continue, and the challenger has to try and garner enough support to replace them.
Not illegal to unseat a Prime Minister while at the same time being paid to advise him?
… all taking place in No. 10….
No, not illegal. But done openly, it is fair to say that it damaged his credibility.
He would have been bound by confidentiality just as in any employment. Or do you think Downing Street added a clause in his contract so that he could breach confidentiality if he wanted?
Not as far as I’m aware. Perhaps you could point us in the direction of the law that says otherwise?
Why don’t you enlighten us Richard (or perhaps don’t!) about which particular law Cummings broke?
Or should we talk about something a bit more strategic and interesting for once?
More seriously RL your name/moniker is a spoof isn’t it? It cannot be correct as it’s clearly the sort of name a Carry On Film would give to a Porn Star.
I think someone is taking the mick here out of us.
You’re getting quite tedious about this point. Firstly nothing Cummings did in that respect is any kind of crime. Secondly it didn’t succeed and Cummings and his lot were booted out. As it happens I think this was a great loss to any chance of achieving the very necessary reforms of the British state – which performs s
lamentably badly in many respects. But it is true that Cummings is worst enemy in this regards and you do need to work with other people rather than endlessly demonising them and attacking them.
What do you mean Cummings didn’t succeed? Johnson was neutered and then deposed.
I imagine he must feel somewhat piqued that he got the sack and sidelined whilst the Labour plant who actually wielded the knife got got her son parachuted into a seat and her a peerage.
Cummings had a 25,000 word post? Seriously? Great way to make sure no one reads it.
Does anyone know if Cummings was arrested and questioned by police for his role in bringing down a sitting Prime Minister while advising him from inside Downing Street? He has admitted to doing this in a tv interview. He and his friends started to plot to oust Johnson the very day he arrived in No. 10.
Why is this never discussed in the media?
It was covered extensively by the media at the time-you just weren’t watching mate.
Jeez, even old Auntie did a 1 hour TV special (L. Kuessberg back in 2021) called Dominic Cummings -The Interview.
Why is Cummings plugged remorselessly by Unherd? Does anyone know?
He’s better looking than you.
I’m sorry for so many comments… I have a feeling I might be banned again quite soon…
will miss u x
Fingers crossed
People voting Reform?
Better cancel the elections.
Did Reform elect it’s leader?
Almost all of the current membership have never voted for Farage, having joined after he became leader.
There were 40,000 members then and over 200,000 now.
People didn’t vote for Farage on pieces of paper.
People voted with their feet.
It’s an interesting question, because it highlights how bad the mainstream parties have been – certainly since the millennium – at electing their leaders. One member-one vote sounds ‘democratic’, but most members of the main parties haven’t a clue about who would be the best leader for their party. Ed Miliband rather than David (to satisfy the unions); Jeremy Corbyn; a whole string of poor Conservative leaders chosen on the basis of the person the ignorant members like.
Party leaders should (IMO) be chosen by those close enough to them to know their strengths and weaknesses. Not by the wider membership.
the leader should be elected/chosen by fellow MPs. It is the only way to get stability.
I agree it’s not a straight-forward issue. I’m for parliamentary democracy not direct democracy myself for same sort of reason.
The Farage/Reform issue though is unique. He ‘owns’ it and as it grows we’ll see how democratic he really is.
Your very simple and reasonable question has caused a stir, but doubtless that’s why you asked it. I think a reasonable and truthful reply would be that, at the last election, Farage volunteered to rescue Reform, which would not be in its current position without him. The fact that so many people have joined is an endorsement of his leadership for the present. However, success means there are now several possible alternative leaders, or at least leaders of popular opinion.
Time for Reform to develop convincing policies….
All the trolls come out when you criticise Cummings!
Trolling is generally considered to be filling up message boards with numerous repetitive irrelevant comments……just saying
Vance asks why protect Europe if there is no democracy there?.
Cummings is someone who has done untold danage to UK democracy. Sabotaging Johnson while advising him. As he has confessed on tv.
Unherd now plugs him here.
What sort of democracy is this? Is it worth prorecting?
Detecting you may be a Boris-fan RL?
Quite an albatross that Shipmate.
It was arrogant of Cummings to think that he could decide who was prime minister. However he thought Johnson might have potential to radically reform the country and Johnson showed that he wasn’t interested in this. This is the bigger point. Johnson was also the prime minister which managed to quadruple the level of net migration, as well as course of accepting all the absurd Net Zero policies which are leading to world’s highest energy prices and almost complete the de industrialization of the country. (As well as having absolutely no measurable effect on global warming!) He was an absolute disaster. Ah. But he could be fun…..
Many of us are just not interested anymore in The Westminster musical chairs of almost indistinguishable establishment politicians who never deliver on anything the people actually want, while capitulating to.every ludicrous judicial opinion on any subject, including Western security and importing a bunch of Hamas terrorists into the country.
Read The Plot
Normies are waking up to the fact that they’ve been betrayed by Labour and Conservatives alike.
I don’t trust Reform, especially characters like Tice, but they’re currently our only hope.
Cummings is also untrustworthy. He fancies himself as a Rationalist, and suffers from the hubris characteristic of that community. He got COVID very wrong, and he’s not sceptical enough of the WEF agenda.
James Cleverly is most certainly a wrong’un – a principle-free party man par excellence.
WEF. Oh no, not that old chestnut!!. It is a talking shop, maybe an influential one, for preening leaders of states and corporations, not a world government!! Even Vladimir Putin has spoken there. Until the anti elite Right stop talking conspiratorial nonsense they will get nowhere.
Groupthink does not necessarily imply some hidden leader telling everyone what to think. There are indeed fashions, such as in economic theory .
I can’t stand Cummings but much of his analysis is both different and in my view spot-on.
I think he’s much better at identifying the problems than the solutions
Having never been a member of any political party, I have been to local meetings of political party associations from all over the political spectrum for over thirty years now. Visiting the local Reform branch meeting last week, I was struck by how motivated and energised the members were. I have never witnessed anything like it in the UK.
If I were Labour or the Conservatives, I would be highly concerned. The combination of indignation, controlled anger, self discipline, and sense of moral purpose I observed in the members was startling. And they had a sense of humour too.
For the first time in my life I am considering joining a political party. I don’t think replacing Kemi would do the Conservatives much good in the long term.
Cummings of course never was into ‘conservatism’. He’s another ‘break things and see what happens’. He accomplished some of that and helped send British politics down a cul-de-sac of a wasted decade. He’s just another rage amplifier on the ‘grift’ vacuous when it comes to real solutions but with a vendetta about some Civil servants who’ve irritated him in the past. Infantile.
Mr Barnard Castle is a known liar too. I’d welcome he associates closely with Farage and comes back into the spotlight more. Let’s have some sh*t stick by association.
He’s realising he’s become irrelevant unless he jumps on the Trump vibe. He misreads the British people and they won’t be trusting him ever again.
If Ms Badenoch as party leader is so bad for Tory prospects just keep her there.
The trouble with regime change is everyone has a different idea of what it should achieve, and everyone thinks it will go their way. That’s why the Reform vote is best seen as a protest rather than a movement.
Small example: farmers are protesting about inheritance tax; but the spokeswoman for one of the farming organisations also claimed that Brexit had been a disaster for farmers and fishermen. Try putting those two groups in a political coalition! It is easy to complain about the tax, much harder to agree what farm policy should be. That’s where we are with both the Conservatives and Reform. There is no coalition. That’s why we have a government with the largest majority and the smallest vote share in recent history.
Cummings is a stain on Unherd.
Cummings is such an arrogant twit. He thinks nobody understands anything or anyone but himself. A classic hurler in the ditch, constantly b1tching about the good efforts of everyone else and doing his best to destroy people he is jealous of. He backed Johnson, ffs! What more could you possibly need to know about his judgment. He disgraced himself in front of the whole world about his lockdown shenanigans with a pitiful display of dissembling. It’s a wonder he dares to show is face in public, let alone that anyone takes him seriously enough to give him column inches. He misses the point about most things.
Badenoch knows that what is needed will take time, there is no quick fix. The Conservatives spent decades bringing themselves to this low point. Badenoch needs to reshape the party and it can’t be done properly overnight. Her problem, if it is one, is that she is too intelligent to wallow in the mud pools where the likes of Cummings reside. She is a substantial politician who deserves the respect and loyalty of her party for the long term project ahead. Reform are nothing more than a sweetie shop full gaudy, insubstantial ideas and easy soundbite cliché – a seductive conduit for disaffected voters impatient for change. But they are not a serious political party, more like a rag-tag of agit prop ranters.
Kemi Badenoch has absolutely not proven herself to be a serious politician, at least yet. She had already proven herself a dismal failure at holding this appalling Labour government to account, missing gaping open goals. She is more interested in attacking the party which actually has been right over immigration and wishes to radically do something about it, unlike hers, which managed to increase it fourfold! And she was a senior member of the appalling administrations which delivered this situation.
We can understand that leftists fundamentally don’t believe in national borders or the British people should be in any way treated more favorably than foreigners. However the Conservatives have arguably been much worse, cynically talking a hard language while deliberately liberalizing immigration policy, probably at the behest of their big business friends and of academia.
I’m sorry but you are very likely to be disappointed. The Conservatives are a divided mess and have shown themselves to have absolutely no answers whatsoever to our problems certainly not ending the rule of judges, wildly over interpreting human rights and international laws, who effectively run the country.
I quite like Kemi, but I think you over egg her ability.
However, the PP she leads has a majority of MPs who are resolutely soft left, EU devotees and Lib Dem types. This cannot be changed, and if the Tories had won more seats, then there would have been even more of the same type sitting. CCHQ saw to that.
I have never met Cummings and there are many aspects of his personality which do not offer immediate appeal but my old friend Norman Stone always said he was the brightest person he had ever taught……..
We certainly need a patriotic leadership. Someone who has the balls to put the ethnicity British / Anglo Saxon first. If you’re a guest here, behave or leave.
Cummings got Covid 100% wrong. Cant be trusted.
The Conservative Party up till now has been the most successful and longest enduring political party in the western democracy sphere. No more. Cameron’s arrival as Prime Minister in 2010 heralded a consolidation of the politically rot initiated by John Major during his grey term of office. Tory prime ministers following Cameron have all led and stoked the Woke Revolution in the UK and handed to the Kier Starmer a nation whose freedoms are shackled by a raft noxious legislation (e.g. Non Crime Hate Incident policy), who’ve permitted the most unbelievably huge flood of mass immigration into the UK and a budget legacy that more than matches that left to them by the disastrous Gordon Brown government. The Conservative Party is pretty much indistinguishable from its Labour sibling. Both are socialist in their outlook and mentality. If their most recent DEI choice of Leader is anything to go by they may already have become an historical topic for political studies textbooks.
I agree but wish he wouldn’t say it. She’s doing a grand job of screwing it up on her own. Tell the Tories what to do, they’ll do the opposite. With her majority of 2600 she’ll probably lose her seat next time anyway.
Cleverley? The name’s a curse as much as Bad Enough. The beard makes him look like a Big Issue seller. Only needs a sleeping bag and a dog. Jenrick doesn’t rhyme with anything and why can’t we have a man that looks like he’s from round here for a change? Newark’s the extreme east of the Red Wall. May will tell all.
This is the person who was so politically astute that he couldn’t even stop Princess Nut Nut having him removed. I’m sorry but Machiavelli he isn’t