By Elizabeth Piper and Andrew MacAskill
LONDON (Reuters) – Kemi Badenoch won a race on Saturday to become the new leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, vowing to return the once dominant party to its founding principles to win back voters who handed the Conservatives their worst election defeat in July.
Badenoch, 44, 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 Britain, Badenoch will bring a right-wing tone to the role, likely to back policies to shrink the state and challenge what she says is institutional left-wing thinking.
“The time has come to tell the truth,” she told an audience at the final count of a months-long leadership contest, promising to answer the main questions over how the Conservatives lost the July election so badly.
“It is time to get down to business, it is time to renew.”
Badenoch becomes the Conservatives’ fifth leader since mid-2016 after 53,806 party members voted in favour of her over a former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, in the final stage in a long contest that saw a field of six whittled down to two. Jenrick won 41,388 votes.
With forthright views on everything from what she calls identity politics to the value of officials, Badenoch attracts both strong admirers and detractors. She is certain to shake up the Conservatives, who saw their contingent of lawmakers in the 650-seat parliament fall in July to 121 from 365 seats in 2019.
With the Labour government off to a bumpy start following the party’s landslide election, some Conservatives are increasingly optimistic that they could win back power at the next election, which has to 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 former trade minister’s time in government was often marked by disputes with the media, celebrities and her own officials. But her no-nonsense approach has also won over many supporters, including the Conservative members who chose her above Jenrick.
“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.”
