Badenoch says ‘Labour are repeating our mistakes and will fail’ as she vows fresh start for Tories

Conservative leadership winner tells The Telegraph she will move party in new direction to break from ‘mistakes’ of predecessors

Kemi Badenoch said it was time for the Conservative Party to “start afresh” after she was elected as its new leader on Saturday.
Mrs Badenoch won 53,806 votes from Tory members, defeating Robert Jenrick, her rival, who achieved 41,388 in the most closely-fought leadership contest of the modern era.
Addressing staff at Conservative Party headquarters on Saturday, she said: “It took a lot of guts and a lot of courage for us to stick to the fact that we needed to renew before we started having a new manifesto for the next election.
“That means there is all to play for. It means we can start afresh. It means that all of us can have a stake in the party.”
Speaking to The Telegraph, she signalled that she would move the Tories in a new direction in a break from the “mistakes” of her predecessors.
This is understood to include moving away from the policies of previous leaders such as the drive towards net zero, legislation aimed at banning smoking and the Renters’ Rights Bill.
She warned that Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, was making the same mistakes that had led to the Conservatives losing their largest majority since Margaret Thatcher.
“Labour are going to fail because they are repeating many of our mistakes and are doubling down on this broken system,” said Mrs Badenoch. “It is now the job of the Conservatives to hold them to account and begin the work of renewal.
“By the next general election, we will provide an alternative that will make our country better in the decade ahead. We must now come together as a team to renew and defeat Labour.”
Mrs Badenoch, 44, becomes the first black woman to lead a major political party, and only the second woman to serve as permanent Leader of the Opposition after Margaret Thatcher.
She is also the first major party leader to identify as a first generation immigrant.
Born Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke in Wimbledon, south-west London, in 1980, Mrs Badenoch spent her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria. She has described her upbringing as “middle class” when compared to her “very poor” surroundings.
Her father Femi worked in the city as a GP, while her mother Feyi was a professor of physiology at the University of Lagos.
In her maiden speech as an MP she described “living without electricity and doing my homework by candlelight because the state electricity board could not provide power, and fetching water in heavy, rusty buckets from a borehole a mile away because the nationalised water company could not get water out of the taps”.
At the age of 16, she returned to Britain to live with a family friend in Wimbledon and study for her A-levels while working part-time in McDonald’s.
Sir Keir congratulated her on becoming the first black leader of a political party at Westminster, saying it was “a proud moment for our country”.
The Prime Minister’s remarks were echoed by David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, who said it mattered “not only for Brits from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, but for our whole country”.
Urging Tory members to come together to restore trust in the party and defeat Labour in her victory speech, Mrs Badenoch urged Conservatives to “tell the truth”, reflect on their party’s decline and “get down to business” in order to reverse their fortunes.
 
“This is not just about the Conservative Party – it is about the people we want to bring back to the Conservative Party. It is about the people we need to bring into the Conservative Party,” she said.
“It is about what the Conservative Party needs to be in the next five, 10 and 20 years. Our party is critical to the success of our country, but to be heard we have to be honest. Honest about the fact that we made mistakes, honest about the fact that we let standards slip.”
One of the major tests she will face is winning back support from Reform UK, whose four million votes at the election came largely at the expense of the Conservatives.
In an article for The Telegraph, Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, claimed her victory “represents an unchanged, unreformed Conservative Party”.
Noting that she had not matched Mr Jenrick’s commitment to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Farage urged Tory members who had backed that policy to leave the Tories and join his party instead.
Mrs Badenoch intends to appoint her shadow cabinet by Tuesday, and has suggested she would offer all five of her Conservative leadership rivals a role in her top team. She used her victory speech to praise them, saying: “We have come through this campaign more united, and the party needs you now more than ever.”
Her in-tray will also include preparing for her first Prime Minister’s Questions against Sir Keir on Wednesday.
Just under three in four members – 72.8 per cent – took part in the leadership election in what was the lowest turnout in a Tory contest since the modern system was introduced in 1998.
It also marked the tightest victory margin on record, with Mrs Badenoch securing the lowest-ever vote share – 56.6 per cent – for a winning candidate.
On Saturday, Bob Blackman, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, confirmed that the threshold for a vote of no confidence in the Tory leader had been raised this week to reflect the much smaller size of the parliamentary party after the election.
Noting that there were just 121 Conservative MPs, he told GB News: “It was 15 per cent, it’s now 33.3 plus one. So from that perspective I’m not expecting to see any problems in that regard ever, actually.”
Congratulating Mrs Badenoch shortly after the result was announced, Mr Jenrick urged the Tory party to unite behind her.
“Thank you to everyone who supported my vision for a Conservative Party rooted in the common ground of British politics,” he said. “It’s now time for the Conservatives to unite behind Kemi and take the fight to this disastrous Labour Government.”
An ally of Mr Jenrick said he would be ready to serve in Mrs Badenoch’s shadow cabinet, although James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, had signalled that he would return to the backbenches regardless of who became leader.
Mr Jenrick’s call was echoed by Rishi Sunak, who said his successor would be “a superb leader” and told his party: “Let’s unite behind her.”
Boris Johnson said Mrs Badenoch – who resigned as his equalities minister in July 2022 over the Chris Pincher affair – would bring “a much needed zing and zap” to the Tory Party.
“Kemi has exactly the right courage and clarity to expose Starmer’s failings,” he said. “She is now ideally placed to flip them over and take the Tories to victory at the next election.”