# Kemi Badenoch wins Conservative leadership race and becomes first Black leader of a major UK party

Kemi Badenoch has been elected leader of the Conservative Party after defeating Robert Jenrick in the final ballot of party members, completing a contest that opened in the aftermath of the party’s catastrophic general election defeat.

The result makes Badenoch the fourth woman to lead the Conservatives and the first Black leader of a major UK party. She won just over 56% of the 95,000 votes cast, with turnout among eligible members reported at 73%. The margin was the narrowest of the four leadership contests since the Conservatives changed their rules to give members the final say in a contested race.

Badenoch, who has been an MP since 2017 and served as shadow housing secretary, told supporters in central London that the party had to confront difficult truths if it wanted to regain voters’ trust. She said Conservatives needed to be honest about mistakes and slipping standards, and argued that the time had come to tell the truth. Her message was not just a victory speech but an admission that the party faces a long road back after July’s general election, which reduced it to 121 MPs.

Her leadership pitch now becomes the party’s public strategy. Badenoch said the Conservatives’ first duty as His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition was to hold the Labour government to account. She said the second was to prepare for government over the next few years by developing a clear set of pledges and, crucially, a clear plan for how to implement them. That emphasis on delivery suggests she wants to contrast herself with a party that has spent much of the year fighting internally rather than building a convincing alternative.

Jenrick, the runner-up, was thanked by Badenoch despite what the report described as a sometimes bruising campaign. Her words suggested he could still have a role in the shadow cabinet, although some senior figures, including James Cleverly and Jeremy Hunt, signalled they wanted to return to the backbenches after leaving the contest. That matters because a newly elected leader in opposition has to assemble not only a message but a team capable of holding together after a divisive campaign.

The final result also exposed the Conservatives’ membership problem. The 95,000 people who voted represented a record low for a Tory leadership contest, and the eligible membership had fallen to 131,680, a drop of 23% from the period when Liz Truss defeated Rishi Sunak in 2022. The numbers show a party that is smaller, older and less certain of itself than it was only two years ago.

The contest itself was unusually compressed. Six candidates initially secured the necessary nominations from Tory MPs, before successive rounds of parliamentary voting reduced the field. Cleverly had been seen as the strongest performer during the members’ phase and at one point looked the favourite, only to be eliminated in a surprise twist. Badenoch and Jenrick then faced the final run-off, which featured no head-to-head debates and only one televised event. Jenrick’s camp blamed Badenoch for avoiding more debate, underlining the tensions that had built up during the race.

Badenoch’s personal background was also central to the significance of the result. She was born in the UK to Nigerian parents and grew up in Nigeria and the United States, making her election a milestone in the history of Westminster politics beyond the Conservative Party itself. That symbolic weight was acknowledged by political opponents and allies alike, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who congratulated her and called the result a proud moment for the country.

The Conservatives now enter a new phase in which symbolism and substance are tied together. Badenoch’s victory has ended the leadership contest, but it has not ended the harder question the party faces: whether it can turn a leadership change into a credible route back to power.