Is Katie Lam the new Adam Afriyie?

It’s been difficult for Conservative-watchers in recent days to avoid Katie Lam, the previously unknown Tory MP who was only elected for the first time last year but has very rapidly found herself talked of as Kemi Badenoch’s successor as leader.

Initially this seemed due to nothing more than the novelty that Lam was young, fresh-faced and had written a musical adaptation of The Railway Children. But she has since been touring the newsrooms and broadcasting studios with immigration policies which go well beyond even the shadow cabinet’s current plans.

In an edition at the weekend with the Sunday Times’s Josh Glancy headlined ‘Katie Lam: head girl, immigration hardliner – and the Tories’ new hope’, Lam laid out how indefinite leave to remain should be removed unless people could pass a means test. “There are… a large number of people in this country who came here legally, but in effect shouldn’t have been able to do so,” she said. “It’s not the fault of the individuals who came here, they just shouldn’t have been able to do so. They will also need to go home. What that will leave is a mostly but not entirely culturally coherent group of people.”

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She then doubled down on ITV’s Peston, saying that “this country wasn’t built on migration” and then getting the soft-soap treatment from her interviewer, who said: “All you’re saying, you’re just simply saying that you would have different rules on right to remain”, completely ignoring that Lam’s proposed legislation is retrospective.

Still, Lam should be careful. Rats in a Sack hears some senior Conservatives are already referring to her as ‘Afriyie’ – a reference to Adam Afriyie, a little-known Conservative who was very briefly being spoken of as the next leader several years ago.

Back in January 2013 the Tory papers were all aflutter about Afriyie, the so-called ‘Tory Obama’, with the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Times both claiming that the MP for Windsor was being tipped to topple David Cameron. The Times reported that more than 100 Conservative MPs had been approached about whether or not they would support Afriyie in a future leadership battle while the Mail claimed 40 MPs had already signed a letter saying they would support him if the moment came due to dissatisfaction with the status quo.

How did that work out? Afriyie never reached even the most junior of ministerial office, was declared bankrupt in 2022, stepped down as an MP last year and hasn’t been heard of since. One to remember for Lam as she revels in being the media’s latest shiny new thing!