Opinion polls suggest that the Conservatives would have been better off choosing someone like James Cleverly as leader rather than Badenoch, who is not popular with the public at large. (See 9.38am.) She is also someone whose main campaign theme was that the state should be doing less, but who has become leader at a time when the public want more and better services from the state, not fewer. The Tories are ruthless at getting rid of leaders who underperform and there are many at Westminster who think this won’t be the last Conservative leadership contest before the election. But Badenoch has spark and courage, and her supporters are hoping she can turn things around.
Three of the five Conservative leaders who served as PM in the last parliament have posted messages on X congratulating Kemi Badenoch.
Rishi Sunak says:
Congratulations to @KemiBadenoch on being elected @Conservatives party leader.
I know that she will be a superb leader of our great party. She will renew our party, stand up for Conservative values, and take the fight to Labour.
Let’s unite behind her.
Boris Johnson says:
Congratulations to Kemi on her outstanding victory
She brings a much needed zing and zap to the Conservative Party
This sleaze-ridden Labour government has no ideas or agenda beyond the old tax and spend socialism
They are far more vulnerable than the parliamentary maths might suggest Kemi has exactly the right courage and clarity to expose Starmer’s failings
She is now ideally placed to flip them over and take the Tories to victory at the next election
I will be giving her my full support and call on all Conservatives to do the same
And David Cameron says:
Many congratulations @KemiBadenoch on being elected Leader of the @Conservatives. As the last Conservative Leader of the Opposition, I know all too well that it can be one of the toughest jobs in British politics. It is now time for the Party to renew and prove ourselves to the British people. Kemi will have my full support as she starts that crucial work. I also pay tribute to @RishiSunak and thank him for his service - to the Party and to the country. He has been an exemplary leader in challenging times. I wish him well with all he goes on to do in the future.
Theresa May, who does not tweet much, has not posted anything. And Liz Truss has not posted anything about Kemi Badenoch either. But just before the result was announced, she did tweet a link to the book extracts where she blames not just Rishi Sunak, but all the MPs who backed him (including Badenoch presumably) for the election defeat. (See 10.12am.)
My colleague Peter Walker has written an article with five things you might not know about Kemi Badenoch.
He starts by saying that, although she constantly describes herself as an engineer, that does not necessarily mean she would be the best person to build a bridge or to take apart an engineer. She is a computing expert, a systems engineer. In the 2006 Observer interview mentioned earlier (see 1.19pm) she is described as a systems analyst.
Leadership contests are about the only time when the Conservative party discloses membership figures. Robert Colvile, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, a Tory thinktank, says Kemi Badenoch should be worried about the figures out today.
To understand why @KemiBadenoch needs to prioritise rebuilding the Tory membership/movement, just look at the number of votes cast:
2001 - 256,857 (IDS v Ken)
2005 - 198,840 (Dave v DD)
2019 - 138,809 (Boris v Hunt)
2022 - 141,725 (Liz v Rishi)
2024 - 95,849 (Kemi v Jenrick)
Yes, there’s lower turnout this time - disgruntled centrists, or people caring less about not electing a PM. But pool of voters has shrunk from 172,414 to 131,660 in just two years - 40k down!
The Green party has urged the new Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, to abandon some of the “divisive” views she has previously expressed. In a statement on her election, Adrian Ramsay, the Green party’s co-leader, said:
It matters who leads opposition parties and how they play their part in holding the government to account - that’s a critical part of our democracy.
Badenoch’s track record doesn’t fill me with confidence she will do this in a way that benefits the majority in this country, rather than just the super-rich. Hinting at scrapping the NHS, stating current maternity pay is ‘excessive’, not believing in net zero - none of these are great places to start.
I would urge her to use this new found influence to support the Conservatives in moving towards a less divisive style of politics.
A reader asks:
How long is it before letters of no confidence from Tory MP’s can go in?
In theory, they could start arriving this afternoon. Graham Brady has just published Kingmaker, a book about his time as chair of the 1922 Committee during the last parliament which is a lot more revealing than the average political memoir and full of good material about the 1922 no confidence vote process. He says that after Boris Johnson became leader the first two letters calling for a no confidence vote arrived “very early”.
In practice, there is no precedent for a no confidence vote taking place less than a year after a leadership contest. Under the rules, if a leader wins a no confidence vote, another one is not meant to be allowed for at least another 12 months, and so arguably an early one would be a breach of this rule. But no one knows for sure because the 1922 Committee don’t publish their rules and, as Brady explains in his book, they can change them whenever they want anyway. Referring to the executive committee of the 1922 Committee, and how it in effect makes up the rules as it goes along, he says:
This decision-making body has no constitution to tie it in procedural knots. Instead, it is bound only by convention and what the members will accept.
This being the Conservative party, some of them are, of course, thinking about the next leadership election. In an interview with Sky News John Hayes, a leading Robert Jenrick supporter, would only say that Jenrick should give up his leadership ambitions “for the time being” when asked if his hopes of leading the party were over. When pressed, Hayes indicated that of course he wanted the party to unite, but that he was just making a point about the future always being uncertain.
“For the time being”
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) November 2, 2024
I question senior Tory right wing MP John Hayes on whether Robert Jenrick should permanently abandon his leadership ambitions
Listen: pic.twitter.com/63zpWMxn56
Robert Jenrick has urged the Conservative party to unite behind Kemi Badenoch. He posted this on social media.
Congratulations to @KemiBadenoch.
Thank you to everyone who supported my vision for a Conservative Party rooted in the common ground of British politics.
It’s now time for the @conservatives to unite behind Kemi and take the fight to this disastrous Labour Government.
There will be full coverage of Kemi Badenoch’s victory in the Observer tomorrow. In a post on Bluesky, Sunder Katwala, head of British Future, a thinktank focusing on race and identity issues, says Badenoch’s first published interview in a national paper may have been one in the Observer in 2006. She was one of several young Tories the paper spoke to about why the party was becoming cool again under David Cameron. In it she spoke about her support for civil liberties and said she was “not one of those Conservatives who thinks every problem in the country is down to Blair and the Labour party”.
Katwala also says this YouTube video of a speech Badenoch gave at TedX Euston in 2011 gives a good insight into what drew her into politics.
In a post on social media this morning Steve Barclay, who held a series of cabinet posts and who is now shadow environment secretary, said he would not take a shadow cabinet post under the new leader, whether it was Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick.
I want to congratulate Kemi and Rob on their excellent campaigns over recent months.
After 9 years on the front bench, including the last 6 in the Cabinet, I have decided to return to the backbenches away from the constraints of front bench life and to have more time as a dad.
Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, and James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary (see 8.24am), have both also said they are stepping down.
Kemi Badenoch faces a challenge uniting her party, my colleague Pippa Crerar says.
Kemi Badenoch takes 53,806 votes to Robert Jenrick’s 41,318 on a turn out of 72.8%.
It means she becomes Tory leader with backing of just 41% of party members and 1/3rd of Tory MPs. It’s clear her first task will be uniting her fractured party.
And here is some more reaction to Kemi Badenoch’s victory from other parties.
From Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster
Wales wasn’t factored into Kemi Badenoch’s leadership campaign. She offered us nothing – no policies, no interest, and no recognition of her party’s collapse here. Instead, her campaign was riddled with blunders: she claimed maternity pay had gone too far, stigmatised autism, and even suggested civil servants should be locked up. It’s clear that the Conservatives’ problems in Wales are far beyond her reach.
From Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader
I congratulate Kemi Badenoch on her historic achievement as the first Black female leader of the Conservative party.
The first thing any new Tory leader should do is apologise to Scots for gambling with families’ savings, crashing the economy and sending bills soaring while putting party before country.
Yet with Badenoch already talking about cutting the maternity pay that is vital to young working families, it seems unlikely that the Tories have learned their lesson.
While Keir Starmer congratulated Kemi Badenoch on her victory (see 11.44am), the Labour party issued a more critical response on a statement from Ellie Reeves, the party chair. Reeves said:
Congratulations to Kemi Badenoch on being elected leader of the Conservative party. It’s been a long leadership election but sadly one thing is clear – the Conservatives have learned nothing since the British people resoundingly rejected them in July. It’s been a summer of yet more Conservative chaos and division.
They could have spent the past four months listening to the public, taking responsibility for the mess they made and changing their party. Instead, Kemi Badenoch’s election as leader shows they’re incapable of change.
