LONDON – Kemi Badenoch won a race to become the new leader of Britain’s Conservative Party on Saturday, vowing to return the once dominant party to its founding principles in an effort to regain the support of voters following their worst election defeat in July.
Badenoch secured the majority of votes from party members in the final stage of a contest that began with six candidates and narrowed down to two.
As the first Black woman to lead a major political party in the UK, Badenoch is poised to bring significant changes to the Conservatives, who faced a major loss under the leadership of former prime minister Rishi Sunak.
“So here is what we are going to do. We are going to rewrite the rules of the game,” she told the Conservative Party’s annual conference in the central English city of Birmingham earlier this year.
“Some people say I like a fight. I can’t imagine where they got that idea. But it’s not true, I do not like to fight but I’m not afraid to fight,” she said, pledging to go into combat against “left-wing nonsense” and for Conservative ideals.
She called her leadership campaign “Renewal 2030” rather than using her name, as she believes the party needs time to recover and win power for the next 2029 election.
First elected in 2017 for Saffron Walden in southeast England, Badenoch was appointed trade minister in 2022, a rapid rise marked by a number of clashes with the media, celebrities, and her own officials but also a surge in support in the then Conservative government, which admired her no-nonsense approach.
