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Kemi Badenoch has been elected the new UK Conservative leader, with a vow to reset the party’s thinking and politics after its catastrophic election defeat this summer.
The former business secretary won 57 per cent of the vote, a decisive victory against her rival Robert Jenrick, the ex-immigration minister.
The turnout was 72.8 per cent of the party’s 131,680 members, according to 1922 committee chair Bob Blackman, who unveiled the result at an event in Westminster on Saturday.
Badenoch, MP for North West Essex, becomes the first Black leader of the Tories and the fourth woman to take the helm.
She was born in Wimbledon and raised the middle class daughter of a doctor and academic in Nigeria before returning to the UK as a teenager to study. She has argued that her engineering degree means she is well-placed to fix the UK’s “broken system”.
Badenoch’s critics say she is gaffe-prone but admirers call her plain-speaking style a breath of fresh air.
She is also an impassioned crusader against “woke” ideology and describes herself as a “net zero sceptic” who wants an overhaul of the British state.
In her acceptance speech, she told the party faithful: “The task that stands before us is tough but simple . . . to hold this Labour government to account . . . [and] to prepare over the course of the next few years for government.”
Invoking one of the slogans of her campaign — “the time has come to tell the truth” — she said: “We have to be honest, we made mistakes, let standards slip.”
With a rallying call for all sections of the party to unite, she said the Tories must “reset our politics and thinking”, adding: “It’s time to get down to business, it’s time to renew.”
It was the “most enormous honour” to be elected to “lead the party that I love”, she said, and paid tribute to her predecessor Rishi Sunak.
It is the end of a lengthy contest that formally started after the Tories suffered their worst ever election defeat on July 4 — but in effect commenced months earlier as the scale of the expected rout became clear.
Badenoch, 44, faces a mountainous path to lead the Conservatives back to power after they slumped to just 121 MPs, down from 365 at the previous election.
Party chair Richard Fuller urged members to give the new leader “our full support” and to get out into the community to help “rebuild trust with the electorate”.
The Conservatives must persuade voters that they are “on the side of people who want to contribute to society and get on with their lives”, he said.
Badenoch is expected to have a call with UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer. He congratulated her on X and said it was a “proud moment” for the country to gain its first Black leader of a UK party.
She beat five contenders to seize the crown: Jenrick, former home secretary James Cleverly, ex-security minister Tom Tugendhat, former pensions secretary Mel Stride, and ex-home secretary Dame Priti Patel.
She is set to start announcing her front bench team soon, with crucial roles expected for her prominent supporters, including former energy secretary Claire Coutinho, former Treasury minister Laura Trott and ex-innovation minister Andrew Griffith.
A campaign insider said all her senior appointments would be completed by the time of her first shadow cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Paying tribute to Jenrick’s “energy and determination” — and noting that “we don’t actually disagree on very much” — she signalled he would have a “key role to play” if he chooses to take it up.
Some of the party’s most experienced politicians will not feature, however.
Former prime minister Sunak, former chancellor Jeremy Hunt and former home secretary James Cleverly have all confirmed that they would not serve in the winner’s shadow ministerial team, preferring to take some time out on the backbenches.
Some Tory MPs privately warn that they do not believe Badenoch will survive until the next election, such is the taste for regicide that Conservative parliamentarians have developed.
However, in a bid to ward off coups, Tory bosses are planning to change party rules to make it harder to oust leaders.
At present 15 per cent of the parliamentary party is required to trigger a “no confidence” vote in the leader. That means that after the disastrous summer election result, just 18 MPs can spark a ballot.
Badenoch’s first big test will be demonstrating progress in the local elections in May. However, it is a tricky task after the party achieved a bounce from the Covid vaccine rollout the last time this particular selection of council seats was up for election in 2021.
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