Who is Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the UK Conservative Party who will succeed Rishi Sunak? – First post

Kemi Badenoch defeated rival lawmaker Robert Jenrick on Saturday to become the new leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, also known as the Tories.

The self-proclaimed outspoken speaker has vowed to return to “true conservatism” to rebuild the party, which faces an uphill battle to return to power.

Badenoch will take over from former prime minister Rishi Sunak, vowing to lead the party through a period of renewal, saying it has veered towards the political center by “ruling from the left” and must return to its traditional ideas.

Here’s everything we know about her.

About Kemi Badenoch

Badenoch, 44, was born in the London suburb of Wimbledon and grew up in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and mother.

She returned to London at the age of 16 in search of a better life. When she wasn’t in school, she earned her living by working at McDonald’s.

Badenoch, a computer science graduate from the University of Sussex, left banking to enter politics.

At the age of 25, she joined the Conservative Party and quickly rose through the ranks, first serving in the London Assembly before being elected to Parliament in 2017.

Two years later, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed her as an MP under the Under Secretary of State for Children and Families.

In 2021, she moved to the position of Minister for Equalities. In 2022, Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, appointed her Secretary of State for International Trade.

Her rapid rise was accompanied by a series of run-ins with the media, celebrities and her own officials, but it was also accompanied by a surge in support from the conservative administration of the time, which respected her outspoken style.

Badenoch is a strong supporter of Brexit, which has won her strong support among Tory voters. She called Britain’s vote to leave the European Union “the greatest vote of confidence in the UK project.”

Often called a “culture warrior” (a title she disputes), she has been outspoken on issues such as gender-neutral toilets (she is against them), reports BBC.

Badenoch, the first black female leader of a major political party in Britain, has also been in the news since former prime minister Rishi Sunak said he would resign after the Conservatives’ crushing defeat.

The last two candidates for party leadership were her and Robert Jenrick, Sunak’s right-wing former immigration minister.

Controversies in the past

Famous Scottish actor David Tennant said in June that he wanted her to “shut up” and wanted her to “no longer exist” because of her views on transgender people and women’s rights.

“I will not be silent,” Badenoch responded to X, calling him a “rich, left-wing, white male celebrity so blinded by ideology” that he couldn’t see the possibility of attacking the only black woman in government.

She also faced backlash when she said five to 10 per cent of civil servants or apolitical officials working in government were “very bad” and “should be in jail” for undermining the authority of ministers – a comment her team called a joke.

Comments that maternity benefits were “excessive” and that people should show “greater personal responsibility” also raised eyebrows – with her again claiming she had been misrepresented.

While some may view such missteps as a problem, Badenoch considers her directness of conversation to be an advantage, which she says has helped her work well in teams in government.

“A lot of people are not used to a politician who tells it like it is,” she told a party conference.

“That’s what we need to do now, in this age where everyone has a short attention span, you need people who can figure it out very quickly and communicate our values ​​clearly, I think I can do that.”

Her plans for the Conservatives

Badenoch is sure to shake up the Conservatives, who suffered their worst election defeat in July under former leader and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

She is targeting not only a left-wing Labor government but also the right-wing populist UK Reform Party, led by veteran Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, whose appeal brought traditional Conservative voters to his side in the July election.

But the expected turn to the right under Badenoch could alienate the more moderate wing of the party and some voters who were supported by the centrist Liberal Democrats in the election when Labor won a landslide victory.

“So here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to rewrite the rules of the game,” she said at the annual Conservative Party conference in the central English city of Birmingham earlier this year.

“Some people say I love to fight. I can’t imagine where they got this idea from. But that’s not true, I don’t like to fight, but I’m not afraid to fight,” she said, vowing to fight against “leftist nonsense” and for conservative ideals.

Badenoch says that having grown up in a place where “fear was everywhere”, she learned to value Britain’s security and became a true champion of Conservative principles such as “free speech, free enterprise and free markets”.

She says the administrations of former prime ministers such as Sunak and Boris Johnson abandoned these principles in favor of an approach that meant the party “spoke the right and governed the left” by transferring votes to other parties.

She credits her father, a doctor who died in 2022, for teaching her “not to be afraid to do the right thing, no matter what people say.”

Some critics say she takes politics lightly, but she says that is controversial at a time when the Conservative Party is out of power. She called her leadership campaign “Renewal 2030” rather than using her name, which she said was a sign that the party needed time to recover and take power. The next elections will take place in 2029.

Based on materials from Reuters