Here are the full figures from CCHQ.
There were 131,680 eligible electors. Turnout was 72.8%.
Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes
Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes
There were 655 rejected ballots.
66,288 electors voted online and 29,621 electors voted by post.
The SNP has said the election of Kemi Badenoch as Tory leader shows the party has embraced the far right. Keith Brown, the SNP’s deputy leader, said:
The election of Kemi Badenoch as leader has finalised the Tories’ lurch to the far right.
Whether it’s rolling back maternity pay or targetting the rights of minorities, Badenoch’s win demonstrates how out of touch the Tories are with people across Scotland.
The Tory party is now firmly dancing to the dangerous tune of Nigel Farage - it is essential that in Scotland Russell Findlay doesn’t dance along and instead stands up for Scotland’s inclusive and progressive values.
This is probably unfair. While Badenoch is certainly very rightwing, there is little in what she has said that would fully fit an academic definition of “far right”, such as Cas Mudde’s claim it is about, at the very least, opposing “fundamental elements of liberal democracy, most notably minority rights, rule of law and separation of powers”.
We have already quoted Keir Starmer’s response to Kemi Badenoch’s election as Conservative leader. (See 11.44am.) The Conservatives will only win back power by regaining votes from the Liberal Democrats and from Reform UK, but the leaders of those two parties have put out quite different statements about Badenoch’s victory.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, congratulated her. He said:
I’d like to congratulate Kemi Badenoch on being elected leader of the Conservative party. The election of the first Black leader of a major UK political party is a historic moment for the country.
Voters across the country believe her party is too divided, out-of-touch and unable to accept Conservative failures over the past years.
The Liberal Democrats will continue to offer the best opposition to the government and fight for a fair deal for Britain.
But Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, said:
Kemi Badenoch is another in a long line of Tory politicians who say one thing and do another.
Kemi Badenoch was front and centre of a government that failed Britain.
She said nothing while Rishi Sunak hit hard-working people with record immigration, the small boats crisis, the highest taxes for 60 years, record NHS waiting lists and sky-high crime.
Instead of standing up for Britain whilst in government, she stood up for her own career prospects and chauffeur-driven cars.
She has failed the British public before and she will fail them again as leader of the Conservative party.
Kemi Badenoch wants to have a new shadow cabinet in place before Tuesday, when the first shadow cabinet meeting under her leadership is due to take place, her team say. But they say she is not planning to announce any appointments today.
The Conservative 1922 Committee has changed the rules to make it harder for MPs to trigger a no confidence vote in the new leader. It used to be the case that, if 15% of MPs wrote in private to the 1922 Committee chair asking for a no confidence ballot, they had to hold one. That threshold has gone up to 33%, meaning 40 MPs would have to be fed up with Kemi Badenoch for a ballot to take place.
Bob Blackman, the 1922 Committee chair, said last month the threshold would be raised to at least 30%. In an interview with Christopher Hope from GB News, he has announced that the executive of the 1922 Committee settled on 33%. Hope says;
The Tories have made it harder to remove new leader Kemi Badenoch. Sir Bob Blackman, the chairman of the 1922 committee tells me for @GBNEWS that the threshold to trigger a vote of no confidence has been secretly increased from 15pc to 33 pc of the Parliamentary party. This means that 40 MPs will be needed to trigger a vote of no confidence in Badenoch, rather than 18 MPs under the old 15pc rule. The change was made at a private meeting of the 1922’s executive last Wednesday.
For the record, here is the extract from Kemi Badenoch’s victory speech with her message for her party.
The task that stands before us is tough, but simple. Our first responsibility, as His Majesty’s loyal opposition, is to hold this Labour government to account.
Our second is no less important. It is to prepare over the course of the next few years for government, to ensure that by the time of the next election, we have not just a clear set of Conservative pledges that appeal to the British people, but a clear plan for how to implement them.
A clear plan to change this country by changing the way that government works. The prime minister is discovering all too late the perils of not having such a plan. That huge job begins today.
It will seek to involve all of our colleagues in parliament, in the Scottish parliament, the Senedd, our friends in Northern Ireland, as well as councillors and party members. But this is not just about the Conservative party. It is about the people we want to bring back to the Conservative party.
It is about the people we need to bring into the Conservative party. It is about what the Conservative party needs to be over the next five, ten and twenty years. Our party is critical to the success of our country. But to be heard, we have to be honest.
Honest about the fact that we made mistakes. Honest about the fact that we let standards slip. The time has come to tell the truth. The time has come to tell the truth, to stand up for our principles, to plan for our future, to reset our politics and our thinking, and to give our party and our country the new start that they deserve. It is time to get down to business. It is time to renew.
Badenoch used language like this throughout the leadership contest but, like all the other candidates, she was reluctant to spell out in much detail what the “mistakes” made by the last government actually were, and who was at fault. The obvious culprits are Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, but they both remain quite popular with some Tory members and there was very little explicit criticism of what they did in office from anyone during the campaign.
What we don’t know yet is whether Badenoch will be minded to turn on her predecessors more bluntly now that she has won the leadership.
Keir Starmer has congratulated Kemi Badenoch on her election victory, saying the fact that she has become the first black leader of a Westminster party is “a proud moment for our country”. He posted this on social media.
Congratulations, @KemiBadenoch, on becoming the Conservative Party’s new leader.
The first Black leader of a Westminster party is a proud moment for our country.
I look forward to working with you and your party in the interests of the British people.
This is a version of what he said, in slightly more uplifting language, at PMQs on Wednesday when he said that having Rishi Sunak and his family light the diyas outside No 10 last year was “a significant moment in our national story” because he was the first British Asian PM and it showed Britain was a country “where people of every background can fulfil their dreams”.
Badenoch herself is unlikely to talk so much about being the first black leader of a major UK party. Although she was equalities minister, she thinks leftwingers exaggerate the extent to which black people are disadvantaged by structural inequalities in Britain.
Kemi Badenoch won with 57% of the vote.
That is a less decisive victory than David Cameron’s, (68%), Boris Johnson’s (66%) and Iain Duncan Smith’s (61%), and similar to Liz Truss’s (also 57%).
Badenoch said she would want to all colleagues to contribute to the job of renewing the party, including Conservatives in the Scottish parliament, in the Senedd, from Northern Ireland, as well as councillors and party members.
The Conservative party was “critical to the success of our country”, she said.
But she said they had to admit where they made mistakes.
Our party is critical to the success of our country, but to be heard, we have to be honest, honest about the fact that we’ve made mistakes …
The time has come to tell the truth, to stand up for our principles, to plan for our future, to reset our politics and our thinking, and to give our party and our country the new start that they deserve. It is time to get down to business. It’s time to renew.
And that was it. It was a very short speech from Badenoch, that was little more than a rehash of her stump speech.
Badenoch says the Conservative party have a tough but simple job.
They have to hold the government to account, and to prepare for government, she says.
They need, not just clear “Conservative pledges that appeal to the British people”, but also, “a clear plan to change this country by changing the way that government works.”.
She claims Keir Starmer is discovering the perils of not having such a plan.
