Kemi Badenoch enters race to lead UK Conservatives
Former British Conservative Party business minister Kemi Badenoch has launched her bid to become opposition leader, making her the sixth candidate seeking to replace the outgoing Rishi Sunak.
Sunak stepped down as leader following the party’s worst- ever election performance earlier this month but said he would stay as acting leader until a successor was chosen.
Badenoch, in an article for Monday’s edition of The Times, said the Conservatives “deserved to lose” the July 4 election and that in government the party had been too left-wing.
“We talked right yet governed left. The public felt manipulated,” she wrote.
“Real leadership sets a principles-based vision about where to take the country and then inspires people to join that shared mission.”
Badenoch said Britain’s asylum system “effectively opens borders to anyone willing to lie” and said the state should put British citizens first and focus on a narrower range of tasks than it has taken on since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ahead of nominations closing on Monday, the other candidates to lead the Conservative Party so far are: former interior minister Priti Patel, former security minister Tom Tugendhat, former foreign minister James Cleverly, former work and pensions minister Mel Stride and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick.
The leadership contest will see the party’s MPs narrow the field to four candidates who will make their case at the Conservative Party conference in September.
The number of candidates will then be narrowed down to two, who will be put forward to a vote of all party members, with the new leader named on November 2.
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