Kemi Badenoch yesterday won the Conservative Party leadership election with the lowest number of votes since voting by members was first allowed more than 25 years ago.
The election saw the lowest turnout since 1998, with almost 30% of the membership—which has itself fallen to a record low—not bothering to vote. Badenoch’s margin of victory over runner-up Robert Jenrick was also the tightest in Tory leadership election history.
This is hardly surprising, given that few within the British conservative movement—whatever remains of it, at least—believe either Badenoch or Jenrick are up to the colossal (some say impossible) job of turning the party around. But of the two, Badenoch appears to be the least conservative.
Her action—as opposed to her rhetoric—on all-important transgender issues has left much to be desired. And unlike Jenrick, Badenoch has failed to commit to a measure said to be essential to tackling illegal immigration. She has even made false claims about France’s efforts to control its borders in an attempt, as desperate as it is opaque, to make up for her evasion.
Commenting on Badenoch’s win, writer Aris Roussinos said the Tory members who turned out to vote “chose continuity … but the country remains restive and hungry for serious change—and is more willing than ever to turn on politicians who fail to deliver it.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage also complained that “Badenoch has been seen as tough on immigration, yet she campaigned hard for foreign students coming into Britain to be allowed to bring dependents. On the European Union, once again, she talks about being a Brexiteer, yet, as a minister, she ran away from the chance to repeal thousands of EU laws.”
“Why,” he added, “would I ever trust the Tories again? Their brand is broken and they have lost the trust of the British people.”
Badenoch will now select her shadow cabinet to form the official opposition to Keir Starmer’s Labour government.
