Kemi Badenoch announced as new Conservative Party leader

Kemi Badenoch has been announced as the new leader of the Conservative Party.

Ms Badenoch has defeated Robert Jenrick following a four-month long race to replace Rishi Sunak. The result of the leadership ballot was announced this morning (Saturday, November 2).

Ms Badenoch will be at the helm as the party looks to recover from the July election result which saw it return just 121 MPs. The party lost seats to Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK.

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After the leadership polls closed on Thursday, both candidates thanked their backers for their support through the contest. Ms Badenoch described the party as a 'family' and said that it is 'much more to me than a membership organisation'.

Immigration, the economy, and how the Conservatives can rebuild trust with the electorate and win back voters they lost at the election were all discussed at length through the campaign. Dame Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly also put their names forward in the nominations at the end of July.

Dame Priti and Mr Stride were the first two contenders to be eliminated in September, leaving four by the time the party gathered in Birmingham for its autumn conference. While the candidates spent four days vying to secure votes, both Ms Badenoch and Mr Jenrick found themselves embroiled in rows during the conference.

Ms Badenoch ended up asserting her support for maternity pay after comments caused a controversy. Meanwhile, Mr Jenrick faced heat from other leadership rivals over claims he made about UK special forces.

Shadow home secretary Mr Cleverly appeared to take the lead after the conference, coming top of the third ballot of MPs with 39 votes, while Mr Tugendhat got knocked out after securing only 20. There was some surprise when Mr Cleverly then did not make the final two names to be put to members the following day, securing only 37 votes compared with Mr Jenrick’s 41 and Ms Badenoch’s 42.

In the weeks since the final MP ballot, Mr Jenrick and Ms Badenoch have been travelling up and down the country in their attempts to secure member support. At the start of the campaign, Ms Badenoch wrote in The Telegraph that the party 'need to get back to first principles' and has been light on the details of specific policies she would enact.

The contest was triggered after Mr Sunak announced he would step aside in the wake of the party’s election defeat in the summer. Earlier this week the former prime minister played down suggestions that he would be leaving Westminster for California.

He told MPs that he would be spending more time in the 'greatest place on earth'. “If anyone needs me, I will be in Yorkshire,” he told Prime Minister’s Questions.

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