She is the sixth person to join the race, while Suella Braverman announces that she will not run.
By Tim Baker, political journalist
Monday 29 July 2024 00:44, United Kingdom
Kemi Badenoch has entered the Conservative leadership race to replace Rishi Sunak, pledging to tell voters the truth.
The shadow housing secretary – who was business and trade secretary in the last government – becomes the sixth person to stand.
She joined James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick and Mel Stride, who said last week, and Go Patelwho launched his candidacy this weekend, in the race.
Suella Braverman should have also shown up, but she said she didn’t chose not to despite the support of the 10 MPs she needed before the 2.30pm deadline on Monday.
The former home secretary wrote in an article for the Telegraph that her party’s disastrous election result was due to failures on migration, tax and “transgender ideology” and said there was “no point” in running for Conservative leader “when most MPs disagree with my diagnosis and prescription”.
“I have been called crazy, evil and dangerous to the point where the Conservative Party does not want to hear that. So I will bow here.”
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Announcing her candidacy and her vow of honesty, Ms Badenoch wrote in The Times: “If I have the privilege of serving, we will tell the truth again.
“That is why my campaign is launching today with an explicit goal: to renew our party for 2030 – the first full year we can return to government and the first year of a new decade.
“We will renew from first principles: we will not be able to control immigration until we reconfirm our belief in the nation-state and its sovereign duty, above all, to serve its own citizens.
“Our public services will never fully recover from the pandemic until we remember that government must do some things right, not everything wrong.
“At the foundation of our renewal, and even of the coming together of the conservative family, is a set of sound principles about how our economy should work and for whom it should work.
“Our nation’s wealth rests on our historic ability to harness the ingenuity and labor of our people, and the willingness of many to trade risk for reward. It has become a dirty word, but our renewal must also mean a renewal of capitalism.”
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Ms Badenoch, a combative figure with a vigorous debating style, has also previously championed women’s rights and equality while in government and has been outspoken on issues including women’s rights and racism.
She was the first cabinet member to criticize 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.
Mrs Badenoch gained some notoriety during the first 2022 Conservative Party leadership racewhen she came fourth behind Liz Truss, Mr Sunak and Penny Mordaunt.
But she won significant support in the race, including from senior minister and now former MP Michael Gove.
After the Conservatives were defeated in July’s election, when Mr Sunak asked cabinet ministers whether they wanted to keep their old opposition jobs, she volunteered to take over from Mr Gove and follow Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.
In a brutal speech delivered ten days ago during the Commons debate on the King’s Speech, Ms Badenoch attacked Ms Rayner, giving a taste of what MPs can expect if she becomes Conservative leader.
After welcoming the Deputy Prime Minister on her first outing to the government podium, she declared: “From now on, it will only get worse and worse.”
She continued: “She was stitched up! They made her the scapegoat.
“It is quite clear that the bills and policies in the King’s Speech that she refers to were not written by her, but by the Chancellor and her advisers – we all know that!
“We watched [Rachel Reeves] “I’m sorry to tell him that his colleagues… wrote a manifesto and made promises that are not achievable and hung them around his neck and said, ‘Angie, go ahead and sell it!'”
It was also revealed at the same shadow cabinet meeting that Ms Badenoch had criticised Mr Sunak – in comments that were later leaked – and his potential leadership rival, Ms Braverman, for attacking the party during the election campaign.
