LONDON (Reuters) – Kemi Badenoch won Britain's Conservative Party leadership race on Saturday, promising to return the once-dominant party to its founding principles to win back the voters who handed it its worst electoral defeat in July.
Kemi Badenoch, 44, replaces former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. She has pledged to carry out a revival of the party, which she says has moved away from the political center by “governing on the left” and must therefore return to its traditional ideas.
The first black woman to lead a major British political party, Kemi Badenoch will bring a right-wing tone to her role, likely supporting policies to reduce the role of the state and challenging what she sees as a left-wing institutional thought.
“Now is the time to tell the truth,” she said in the final countdown of a months-long leadership race, promising to answer key questions about how the Conservatives lost the July elections.
“It’s time to get down to business, it’s time to renew.”
Kemi Badenoch becomes the fifth Tory leader since mid-2016, after 53,806 party members voted for him against a former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, in the final stage of a process that culminated in the final confrontation of the two candidates, selected from six contenders. Robert Jenrick obtained 41,388 votes.
With strong opinions on everything from what she calls identity politics to the value of public servants, Kemi Badenoch attracts both ardent admirers and detractors. It is sure to shake conservatives, who saw their contingent of lawmakers in the 650-seat parliament fall in July to 121, compared to 365 in 2019.
With the Labor government off to a rocky start after the party's landslide election, some Conservatives are increasingly optimistic they will be able to return to power at the next election, due to take place in 2029.
The tenure of Kemi Badenoch, a former trade minister, was often marked by conflicts with the media, celebrities and her own administration. But his pragmatic approach has also won him many supporters.
“Our first responsibility as a loyal opposition… is to hold the Labor government to account,” she told party members.
“Our second responsibility is no less important: to prepare ourselves for government over the coming years.”
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Sarah Young and Andrew MacAskill, French version Benjamin Mallet)
By Elizabeth Piper and Andrew MacAskill
