Kemi Badenoch elected leader of UK’s Conservative Party

Badenoch replaces former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, will be opposition leader after party’s crushing election defeat.

Kemi Badenoch has won the race to become the new leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, pledging to return it to its founding principles and win back voters after its worst election defeat in July.

Badenoch, 44, came out on top in the two-horse race with former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, winning 57 percent of the votes of party members.

She received 53,806 votes, while Jenrick got 41,388 votes from the 131,680 eligible electors. The party placed turnout at 72.8 percent.

Badenoch replaces former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and has pledged to lead the party through a period of renewal, saying it had veered towards the political centre by “governing from the left” and must return to its traditional ideas.

The first Black woman leader of a major political party in the UK, Badenoch said becoming leader was an “enormous honour”, but that “the task that stands before us is tough.”

The combative former equalities minister faces the daunting task of reuniting a divided and weakened party that was emphatically removed from power in July after 14 years in charge.

“We have to be honest about the fact we made mistakes” and “let standards slip”, she said.

“It is time to get down to business, it is time to renew,” she added.

Kemi Badenoch sits next to Robert Jenrick on the day she was announced as the new Conservative leader, in London, UK [Mina Kim/Reuters]

Born in London to Nigerian parents, Badenoch spent her childhood years in Lagos. She became an MP in 2017, and, in 2022, made her first bid for Conservative leader.

With forthright views on everything from what she calls identity politics to the value of officials, Badenoch attracts both strong admirers and detractors.

She will become the official leader of the opposition and face off against Labour’s Keir Starmer in the House of Commons every Wednesday for the traditional prime minister’s questions.

With the Labour government off to a bumpy start following the party’s landslide election victory, some Conservatives are increasingly optimistic that they could win back power at the next election, which should be held in 2029.

But some more centrist Conservatives worry Badenoch might alienate not only the more moderate wing of the party but also some voters who were won over by the centrist Liberal Democrats at the last election.

“The task that stands before us is tough, but simple: Our first responsibility as His Majesty’s loyal opposition is to hold this Labour government to account,” she told party members.

“Our second is no less important, it is to prepare over the course of the next few years for government.”