After polling 53,806 votes to defeat her closest rival, Robert Jenrick, who polled 41,388 votes, Nigerian-born Kemi Badenoch has emerged as the first African to be chosen as a leader of Britain’s opposition Conservative party.
And in a post victory speech that speaks to her frank outspokenness, Badenoch admitted that the Tories led “standards slip” leading to its defeat at the last polls and called on party leadership to start a rebuilding process that would make the party appeal to British people again.
Badenoch who first contested to lead the Conservative Party in 2022 but crashed out in the fourth round of voting has been fiercely anti-immigration even though she grew up in Nigeria and immigrated to the UK.
She said members of the Conservative party must 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 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” she said.
