Kevin Hollinrake: “There’s No Guarantee That Things Can’t Get Worse” For Conservatives
Kevin Hollinrake was appointed Conservative Party chairman in July 2025
7 min read
Conservative chairman Kevin Hollinrake has been tasked with steering the party’s administration. He tells Noah Vickers how the Tories can turn their fortunes round now Kemi Badenoch has got ‘all the right people in the right seats on the bus’
Kevin Hollinrake has a clear message to voters thinking of backing Reform UK at the next election.
“If you want revolution, then vote Reform,” says the Conservative Party chairman. “Because revolution, in history, doesn’t always work out as people think. People are taking a huge risk if they choose that route.”
Hollinrake believes there is an opportunity in the political marketplace for his ailing party to capitalise on. But doing so, he says, will rely on being able to demonstrate a contrast between fiscal discipline with the Tories or “Corbyn-style” spending with Reform.
The 62-year-old MP for Thirsk and Malton – who worked in property for almost 30 years before entering Parliament in 2015 – has the instincts of a businessman. He is optimistic that the Conservative Party, like a struggling company, can be turned around.
“Politics, like business, is about creating a choice in people’s minds. We’re in a competitive marketplace.” The Tories, he explains, intend to grow their support outwards after first winning back the support of particular “core markets” of voters, including people working for or running businesses themselves.
“You bring good people into the party, and they attract more good people into the party… For everything from Christianity to Apple, that’s exactly what happens in terms of the success of organisations.
“You create a choice in people’s minds, create the vision for the future, you build a coalition of people around it, and then that coalition builds as more people join your ranks. That’s what we’ve got to do.”
Hollinrake says Reform is offering voters a “mix of right-wing and left-wing” policies, pointing to its proposed scrapping of the two-child benefit cap as an example of leftism. In overall terms, he claims that Nigel Farage’s sums do not add up and will lead to an annual deficit of roughly £300bn.
But after years of steep hikes in people’s daily living costs, is there much appetite among voters for politicians promising to prioritise fiscal prudence? Hollinrake insists there is, but capturing those votes will depend on how effectively the Conservatives frame their argument.
“Are people worried about the economy? Of course they are, because everyone’s fortunes are tied to it,” he says.
“Some people are not. Some people are saying ‘none of the above, a plague on all your houses’, and there are some people we will never convince.
“Let’s not forget that a sizeable proportion of people voting for Reform don’t vote ever, so they’re probably not likely to be convinced – but we can’t worry too much about that. What we’ve got to win back are the hearts and minds of people who are centre-right, sensible people.”
The challenge is formidable, as polling consistently puts the Conservatives below 20 per cent of the vote.
“We’re at a very low spot right now, and there’s no guarantee that things can’t get worse,” the chairman admits.
“But I’m very optimistic we can turn that round. You’ve got to look at where we came from – it’s only a year or so ago that we suffered the biggest election defeat in our history.”
It was “devastating”, says Hollinrake, “to see hundreds of your own colleagues losing their seats”, and he tells The House he is now in the process of asking several of them to re-stand at the next election.
“I spend a lot of time doing that, because we’ve got some excellent people who lost through no fault of their own. That experience is vital for us,” he says.
Hollinrake is coy, though, about who exactly will be welcomed back as candidates.
“There are some people who represented us in previous years who probably wouldn’t be the kind of people we’d want back. We’ll be clear about that. The process will make sure we choose the right people.”
Following the election, redundancies at the Conservative Campaign Headquarters left the party HQ with a diminished headcount, though the chairman says staff numbers have now stabilised.
“We want to make sure that most of the money that does come into us – which we really appreciate – is used to take the brand out to our potential voters,” he says.
“I’ll practise what I preach in business: you keep your costs as low as possible, because certainly there are other things you need to spend your money on rather than just headcount.”
In terms of fundraising, the Conservatives remain comfortably ahead of their rivals. The party accepted £4.1m in donations in the second quarter of 2025, compared with £2.9m for Labour, £1.6m for the Liberal Democrats and £1.3m for Reform.
It’s very important that we’re seen as a party of all regions of this country
While reports earlier this year had suggested that lack of funds could require the closure of the Tories’ northern headquarters in Leeds, Hollinrake confirms that it remains open and is there to stay.
“I’m going to visit it shortly,” he says. “We need a base in the North. It’s very important that we’re seen as a party of all regions of this country, not just a party that’s London-centric.”
As one of only a dozen MPs in his party who secured re-election in the North, it is an issue close to his heart. During our interview, he sips from a large mug of tea bearing the words “YORKSHIRE BORN AND BRED… AND PROUD OF IT”.
Hollinrake has taken to his new role with enthusiasm – and an eye for stirring up trouble. Shortly after giving this interview, he launches a campaign calling for an investigation into whether the PM’s top aide, Morgan McSweeney, made a “deliberate attempt to conceal” £739,000 of donations to the Labour Together think tank he once led. (Despite his efforts, the Electoral Commission declined to reopen the case.)
But Hollinrake is also the 10th Conservative chairman in only five years, and he accepts that this amount of churn at the top of the party has not been good for it. He “very much hopes” he will still be in the role by the time of the next election.
He is convinced, however, that with Kemi Badenoch as leader the Tories are on the path to success.
“She’s a different type of leader. She’s not going to try and be all things to all people. She’s going to be specifically setting out her stall, her agenda, her programme, based upon proper conservative values.”
Not being all things to all people is one way of putting how she is viewed by the electorate. When a YouGov poll in August asked voters who they would prefer as prime minister, she is the only party leader to lose when pitted one-on-one against all three of her main rivals: Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage and Ed Davey.
What does Hollinrake say to those in his party calling for a new leader?
“I’d say to those people, that would be a huge mistake, because of course we’re not cutting through right now and we know that, and there are lots of things we need to do. But were people really going to start listening to us after such a big defeat last July and all the things that happened prior to that? Of course it’s going to take time.”
How much time?
“I certainly think we should be seeing progress by the May elections next year. I think that’s going to be a critical time for us. We don’t have to make all the progress by then, but certainly, the direction of travel.”
Does the electorate need more time to get to know Badenoch?
“Totally,” he says, adding that beyond Westminster most MPs are anonymous to the public. “We’re in a bubble down here. They say politics is show business for less attractive people. We think we’re famous. To the public, we’re not famous.
“If you ask people to name three famous politicians in the UK, they’d probably name some people from the past rather than the present. So, of course we need to do more, and of course Kemi needs to do more, and we need to support her to do that.”
Having reshuffled her shadow cabinet in July, Hollinrake says Badenoch has now got “all the right people in the right seats on the bus”.
He is quoting here from business management guru Jim Collins, who argues in his book, Good to Great, that the most successful organisations first ensure they have the right personnel in roles suited to their strengths, before deciding what destination they’re aiming to reach.
As Badenoch prepares for her first anniversary as party leader, will the wheels on the Tory bus go round and round?
