Kemi Badenoch enters race to lead UK opposition Conservative Party

LONDON – Former British business minister Kemi Badenoch launched her bid to become leader of the opposition Conservative Party on July 28, making her the sixth candidate seeking to replace the outgoing Rishi Sunak.

Mr Sunak stepped down as leader

following the party’s worst-ever election performance earlier in June, but said he would stay as acting leader until a successor was chosen.

Ms Badenoch, in an article for July 29’s edition of The Times, said the Conservatives had “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.”

Ms 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 July 29, the other candidates to lead the Conservative Party so far were: 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.

Another former interior minister who had been seen as a likely candidate for leader, Ms Suella Braverman, wrote in an article for July 29’s edition of the Daily Telegraph that she did not intend to run as too few lawmakers shared her views.

The leadership contest will see the party’s elected lawmakers first narrow the field to four candidates, who will make their case at the Conservative Party conference, which begins in late September.

The number of candidates will then be narrowed down to two, who will be put forward to a vote of all party members.

The new leader will be named on Nov 2. REUTERS