UK's battered Tory party elects Badenoch as new leader

New leader of Britain's main opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch speaks after being announced as their new leader, in London on November 2, 2024. [AFP]

The UK's battle-scarred Conservatives on Saturday elected "anti-woke" candidate Kemi Badenoch as its new head, making her the first black leader of a major UK party.

 The combative former equalities minister replaces Rishi Sunak and now faces the daunting task of reuniting a divided and weakened party emphatically ousted from power in July after 14 years in charge.

 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.

 She said it was an "enormous honour" to assume the role, but that "the task that stands before us is tough."

 "We have to be honest about the fact we made mistakes" and "let standards slip," said Badenoch.

 "It is time to get down to business, it is time to renew," she added.

 Prime Minister Keir Starmer congratulated Badenoch, writing on X that "the first Black leader of a Westminster party is a proud moment for our country."

 Sunak said that Badenoch would be a "superb leader", while fellow former prime minister Boris Johnson wrote that "she brings a much needed zing and zap to the Conservative Party".

 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.

 However, she will be leading a much-reduced cohort of Tory MPs in the chamber following the party's dismal election showing.

 She must plot a strategy to regain public trust while stemming the flow of support to the right-wing Reform UK party, led by Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage.

 Having campaigned on a right-wing platform, she also faces the prospect of future difficulties within the ranks of Tory lawmakers, which includes many centrists.

 - 'No wallflower' -

 Badenoch, born in London to Nigerian parents and raised in Lagos, has called for a return to conservative values, accusing her party of having become increasingly liberal on societal issues such as gender identity.

 She describes herself as a straight-talker, a trait that has caused controversy on the campaign trail.

 Badenoch was widely criticised after suggesting that statutory maternity pay on small businesses was "excessive" and sparked further furore when she joked that up to 10 percent of Britain's half a million civil servants were so bad that they "should be in prison".

 On immigration, she said that "not all cultures are equally valid" when deciding who should be allowed to live in the UK.

 Jenrick, 42, had also staked out a tough position on the issue, and resigned as immigration minister in Sunak's government after saying that his controversial plan to deport migrants to Rwanda did not go far enough.

 Badenoch, an MP since 2017, has risen from relative obscurity just a few years ago to now lead the country's second-biggest party.

 The Brexit supporter has made a name for herself as a trenchant critic of "identity politics".

 According to Blue Ambition, a biography written by Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft, Badenoch became "radicalised" into right-wing politics while at university in the UK.

 He described her view of student activists there as the "spoiled, entitled, privileged metropolitan elite-in-training".

 She has insisted criticism of her abrasive style is misplaced.

 "I'm not a wallflower. And people will often take your strengths and present them as weaknesses," she told Sky News.

 She worked in IT and banking before entering politics around a decade ago, eventually winning a seat in the London Assembly in 2015.

 Elected to parliament two years later, she was supported as she rose through the Tory ranks by one-time party heavyweight Michael Gove.

 Badenoch held various ministerial roles during the tail end of the Conservatives' 14-year tenure in power.