Kemi Badenoch elected Tory leader after beating Robert Jenrick in race to succeed Rishi Sunak
Kemi Badenoch has won the race to be Tory leader after beating Robert Jenrick.
The former Business Secretary received 53,806 votes among party members, while Mr Jenrick secured just over 41,000.
Ms Badenoch, 44, who was born in Wimbledon to Nigerian parents is the first black woman to lead a major British political party.
Following her victory, she said: “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.
“Our second is no less important. It is to prepare over the course of the next few years for government, to ensure that by the time of the next election, we have not just a clear set of Conservative pledges that appeal to the British people, but a clear plan for how to implement them, a clear plan to change this country by changing the way that government works.
“The Prime Minister is discovering all too late the perils of not having such a plan.
“That huge job begins today.”
The results showed Conservative Party membership has fallen by almost a quarter over the past two years.
Barely 95,000 people voted in this year's contest as turnout plunged to its lowest level on record amid declining party membership.
In 2022, when Liz Truss defeated Rishi Sunak, 141,725 members out of a total of around 172,000 voted in that leadership contest.
However, by Saturday there were only 131,680 Tory members eligible to vote for their next leader, a drop of 23%, while turnout fell from 82.6% to 72.8%.
Ms Badenoch’s immediate challenge is to unite her party after the at times fractious leadership contest launched following the July 4 Tory general election disaster.
She will also have to impose her authority on the parliamentary party of just 121 MPs, after the loss of more than 200 seats in the worst election result for the Conservatives since 1832.
Ousted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak agreed to stay on as Tory leader to allow a contest over the summer and into the autumn so the candidates were tested rather than one winning a short race.
Ms Badenoch, MP for North West Essex, focused on “principles” rather than the “policy-heavy” approach of former immigration minister Mr Jenrick.
Central to his campaign was his stance that Britain should leave the European Convention on Human Rights to control immigration and take on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK to win back voters who switched to it at the election from the Tories.
However, Ms Badenoch, an ardent Brexiteer who is also on the Right of her party, did not advocate quitting the ECHR and was seen as seeking to appeal more widely across Conservatives.
A former software engineer, she depicts herself as a disruptor, a self-proclaimed enemy of wokeness, arguing for a low-tax, free-market economy and pledging to “rewire, reboot and reprogramme” the British state.
Congratulations, @KemiBadenoch, on becoming the Conservative Party’s new leader.
The first Black leader of a Westminster party is a proud moment for our country.
I look forward to working with you and your party in the interests of the British people.— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) November 2, 2024
She was also women and equalities minister and has been an outspoken voice on gender issues, including by calling for a change to the Equality Act so that sex is defined only as someone’s biological sex.
With her forthright approach at times getting her into trouble, she had to clarify at the recent Conservative annual conference in Birmingham off-the-cuff comments which appeared to suggest she believed maternity pay was too high and that “bad” civil servants should be in prison.
Newark MP Mr Jenrick, 42, who is a former Tory moderate who opposed Brexit, took a harder Right position in the contest with his call to scrap the UK’s Human Rights Act, end mass migration, abolish carbon-emissions targets and “stand for our nation and our culture, our identity and our way of life”.
Mr Jenrick, however, congratulated his rival on her victory, saying: “Congratulations to Kemi Badenoch.
"Thank you to everyone who supported my vision for a Conservative Party rooted in the common ground of British politics.”
"It's now time for the Conservatives to unite behind Kemi and take the fight to this disastrous Labour Government."
Ms Badenoch and Mr Jenrick made into onto the final shortlist of candidates after four others were knocked out in votes by MPs.
The shock departure from the race was former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly who appeared to have gained momentum only to fail in the last vote by MPs to make the shortlist.
Former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel, ex-Work and Pension Secretary Mel Stride and former security minister Tom Tugendhat were also eliminated in the earlier voting rounds by their parliamentary colleagues.