Kemi Badenoch Elected New UK Conservative Party Leader
British Nigerian Kemi Badenoch has been elected the new leader of the Conservative Party, beating Robert Jenrick by 53,806 votes to 41,388.
She won the vote on Saturday to become the UK Conservatives’ new leader, replacing Rishi Sunak who quit after the party’s disastrous showing in July’s general election.
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.
Badenoch 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.
She said that becoming party leader was an “enormous honour”, but that “the task that stands before us is tough.
.“It is the most enormous honour to be elected to this role, to lead the party that I love – the party that has given me so much.
“I hope that I will be able to repay that debt.”
“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.
She thanked Rishi Sunak, saying: “No one worked harder in such difficult times,” before wishing him the “very best for the future”.
And, in tribute to Robert Jenrick, she says: “We have all been impressed by your energy and your determination.”
She says she has “no doubt” Mr Jenrick has a “key role to play” in the party for “many years to come”.
The new Conservative leader adds that the task before the Tories is “tough, but simple”.
“Our first responsibility… is to hold this Labour government to account,” she says.
“Our second is no less important, to prepare over the course of the next few years for government.”
She says the party needs clear policies – and a clear plan of how to implements them.
“That huge job begins today.”
She adds, “this is not just about the Conservative Party, it is about the people we need to bring back to the Conservative Party, it is about the people we need to bring in to the Conservative Party”.
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