Kemi Badenoch enters Tory leadership race

Kemi Badenoch has entered the Conservative leadership race to replace Rishi Sunak with a pledge to tell voters the truth.

The shadow housing secretary – who served as business and trade secretary in the last government – becomes the sixth person to put themselves forward.

She joins James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick and Mel Stride, who declared last week, and Priti Patel, who launched her bid at the weekend, in the race.

Suella Braverman had also been expected to run, but said she has chosen not to despite having the backing of the 10 MPs she needed before the 2.30pm deadline on Monday.

The former home secretary wrote in an article for The Telegraph her party’s disastrous election result was down to failures on migration, taxes and “transgender ideology” and said there was “no point” running to lead the Tories “when most of the MPs disagree with my diagnosis and prescription”.

“I’ve been branded mad, bad and dangerous enough to see that the Tory Party does not want to hear this. And so I will bow out here.”

Announcing her candidacy and her honesty vow, Ms Badenoch wrote in The Times: “If I have the privilege to serve, we will speak the truth again.

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“That is why today my campaign is launching with an explicit focus on renewing our party for 2030 – the first full year we can be back in government and the first year of a new decade.

“We will renew by starting from first principles: we can’t control immigration until we reconfirm our belief in the nation state and the sovereign duty it has, above all else, to serve its own citizens.

“Our public services will never fully recover from the pandemic until we remember that government should do some things well, not everything badly.

“At the foundation of our renewal, and indeed the reassembly of the Conservative family, is a confident set of principles about how our economy should work, and for whom it should work.

“The wealth of our nation is built upon our historic ability to capture the ingenuity and industry of our people, and the willingness of many to trade risk for reward. It’s become a dirty word, but our renewal must also mean a renewal for capitalism.”

Ms Badenoch, a combative figure with a robust debating style, also previously held the women and equalities brief while in government and has been outspoken on issues like women’s rights and racism.

She was the first member of the cabinet to criticise Frank Hester’s comments about Diane Abbott as racist, but said his apology should be accepted and the Conservative Party should accept more money from the businessman.

Ms Badenoch gained prominence in the first Tory leadership contest in 2022, when she came fourth behind Liz Truss, Mr Sunak and Penny Mordaunt.

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But she gained high-profile backing in that race, including support from senior cabinet minister and now former MP Michael Gove.

After the Conservatives lost the election in July, when Mr Sunak asked cabinet ministers if they wanted to keep their old jobs in opposition, she volunteered to step into Mr Gove’s brief and to shadow deputy prime minister Angela Rayner.

In a brutal speech 10 days ago during the Commons debate on the King’s speech, Ms Badenoch tore into Ms Rayner, in a foretaste of what MPs can expect if she becomes Tory leader.

After welcoming the deputy premier in her first outing at the government’s dispatch box, she said: “It’s only going to be downhill from here.”

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She continued: “She has been stitched up! They’ve made her the fall guy.

“It is quite clear that the bills and policies from the King’s Speech she’s referenced have not been written by her but by the chancellor and her advisors – we all know this!

“We watched [Rachel Reeves] announce them in far more detail in her speech last week. I’m sorry to tell her her colleagues… have written a manifesto and made promises that are not deliverable and hung them around her neck and said ‘Angie, go out there and you sell it!'”

It was also revealed at the same shadow cabinet meeting Ms Badenoch had criticised Mr Sunak – in comments that were later leaked – and her potential leadership rival Ms Braverman for attacking the party during the election campaign.

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