The MP and former Minister of Affairs Kemi Badenoch was elected leader of the British Conservative Party after an election among the members of training, according to the result of the vote announced this Saturday.
Badenoch, 44, replaces the former prime minister Rishi Sunakwho decided to resign for the defeat suffered for the party in the UK general election on July 4.
The new leader of the “Tories” beat the other leadership candidate, the former Home Secretary. Robert Jenrick.
According to the result announced by Bob Black, president of the 1992 Committee – which brings together conservative deputies without particular responsibilities -, Badenoch received a total of 53,806 votes And Jenrick 41,388 supportswhile voter turnout was 72.8%.
After knowing the result, Badenoch thanked Rishi Sunak for his work at the head of the party and for the other deputies who aspired to lead the party now in opposition.
Kemi Badenoch sits next to Robert Jenrick, on the day she was announced as the new leader of the British Conservative Party, in London, Britain, November 2, 2024.
REUTERS
After indicating that it was “a huge honor” to be elected leader of the party, she clarified that the work of the party is “hold this Labor government to account” and prepare training for the future.
Badenoch acknowledged that the task facing the party is “difficult but simple” and that another of its objectives is to return to power. voters who did not support them in the elections.
He added that the training must admit that makes “mistakes” and that we must now give the country a “fresh start”. He also added that “it’s time to get to work, It’s time to renew.”underlined the politician in a brief speech.
Badenoch and Jenrick have suffered in recent weeks members voteafter the elimination of several candidates during a series of votes organized in recent months among conservative MPs.
Daughter of Nigerian parents
Regarding the biography of the new leader of the Conservative Party, Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch, her full name, is the daughter of Nigerian parents from wealthy middle class. The father was a general practitioner in his native country and his mother was a lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lagos.
Teenage girl, Kemi Badenoch moved to UK to complete his secondary studies which would allow him to enter university – the so-called “A level” tests.
This gave him access to the english university of sussexwhere he studied computer engineering.
In his youth, Badenoch worked part-time in a McDonald’s restaurant from Wimbledon, where she cleaned toilets and cooked hamburgers, as she herself recounted about her youth.
Mother of three children, She has been married since 2012 with banker Hamish Badenoch, who worked in Malawi, Nigeria and Kenya before working at Barclays and then Deutsche Bank.
Elected deputy in 2017
Between 2015 and 2017 was a member of the London Assembly. Since 2017, she has been an MP for the North West Essex constituency in south-east England, under her married name, Badenoch.
Known for her strong, combative and from the far right of the partyBadenoch has former prime minister as political heroine Margaret Thatcherwhom he admired during his childhood in Nigeria, where he lived until the age of 16.
She held a series of ministerial posts under the tenures of former Conservative prime ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, who gave her the role of business minister.
He had previously tried unsuccessfully to seize the leadership of the formation in 2022 after the resignation of Boris Johnsonbut fell in internal votes among his party’s deputies.
She was secretary of state for local government under Johnson, but resigned from the post in July 2022 amid the Downing Street house party scandal during the pandemic.
Running for leadership again in 2024, Badenoch, in favor of Brexitstressed that his party must “stop acting like Labour” to regain power.
Controversial maternity leave
He was also at the center of controversy by stating that payment of maternity leave in the United Kingdom, it is “excessive” because it depends on tax revenues brought in by workers. Faced with the controversy, Badenoch, who declared himself pro-businessshe later had to retract, saying she supported maternity leave.
At his party’s recent conference in Birmingham, central England, he said the important thing was to defend the “common sense” that had always characterized the party, which he described as the most successful of the history of the country’s political parties. world.
“I think that the results what we had the last elections They show that we are at an existential point. “There is a right-wing party (Reform) challenging us, people across the political spectrum don’t know what we stand for,” he said.
“I am someone who communicates our values” and “this is why i want to be a conservative leader“, declared the new leader of the Conservative Party.
Their worst results
During these legislative elections on July 4, the conservatives lost 250 seats and They only had 121 left of the 650 who make up the (lower) House of Commons of Parliament, who are elected by the first-past-the-post system.
It was the lowest level of support which the party has never obtained, below the record of 1906, when the Conservatives won 156 seats.
