Kemi Badenoch has vowed to “renew” the Conservative Party and becomes the sixth person to launch a campaign to become the next Conservative Party leader.
The shadow business secretary said she would take her party back to “first principles”, including a focus on sovereignty and building trust in capitalism.
The 44-year-old, who is hoping to succeed former prime minister Rishi Sunak, regularly tops polls among Conservative Party members.
She joins Dame Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly in the race to replace Mr Sunak. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman has said she will not run.
Ms Badenoch said the Conservative Party needed to focus on “doing some things right, not everything wrong” to recover from its worst ever election result, which left it with 121 MPs.
In an article published in The Times newspaper, she said: “My campaign is being launched with the explicit aim of renewing our party for 2030 – the first full year we can return to government and the first year of a new decade.”
Under her leadership, the Conservatives will “tell the truth again” and return to their roots, Badenoch said.
In her article, Ms Badenoch argues for the abandonment of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a major dividing line within the Conservative party.
Some Conservatives believe leaving the Convention is essential to control immigration and strengthen national security, but others fear it would damage the UK’s international reputation and legal protections.
“We cannot control immigration until we reconfirm our belief in the nation state and its sovereign duty first and foremost to serve its own citizens,” Badenoch said.
“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 heart of his promise of “renewal” and “reunification of the conservative family” is an unwavering adherence to capitalism.
“Our nation’s wealth rests on our historic ability to harness the ingenuity and hard work of our people, and the willingness of many to trade risk for reward,” she said.
“It has become a dirty word, but our renewal must also mean a renewal of capitalism.”
A staunch Brexit supporter, Ms Badenoch was first elected as an MP in 2017 and used her maiden parliamentary speech to celebrate the Brexit vote as “the biggest vote of confidence ever recorded in the UK”.
She took her first major ministerial role in Boris Johnson’s government, serving under then-Chancellor Mr Sunak at the Treasury.
Ms Badenoch became a darling of her party’s right during her tenure as Minister for Women and Equalities in 2021 for her stance on trans rights.
She had already stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party after Boris Johnson’s resignation and came fourth despite a relatively discreet start to the race.
According to polls on Conservative Home, a popular campaign website, Ms Badenoch now regularly outpaces her rivals in terms of approval ratings among party members.
Even before announcing her candidacy, Ms Badenoch claimed she had been the victim of “dirty tricks” by her fellow Conservatives, who leaked “dishonest” and damaging allegations about her to the media.
In a social media post, Ms Badenoch said a team behind another leadership bid had sent a “dirty dossier” to journalists and spread rumours she had secretly set up a leadership campaign website.
At the same time, an article about her appeared in The Spectator magazine, claiming that an online profile by the name “Kemi” on a Nigerian website in the mid-2000s had made a series of “blunt, sometimes crude, often confrontational” comments.
The article said the statements did little to damage his reputation for candor and were unlikely to harm him in the party leadership race.
Conservative MPs hoping to become the next Tory leader must secure the support of 10 MPs and raise £200,000 by 2.30pm BST on Monday to get through to the first round of voting.
Mr Sunak will remain Conservative leader until his successor is announced.
The process of selecting his replacement will see Conservative MPs narrow the field of candidates who have secured enough support to four by the party’s annual conference in Birmingham at the end of September.
MPs will then hold a series of votes to narrow the field to two, and then party members will choose the winner.
Online voting will end on October 31 and the result will be announced two days later, on November 2, three days before the US presidential election.
Ms Badenoch and the five other candidates for the Conservative leadership will not face competition from Ms Braverman, who had been widely expected to take part.
In an article published in the Telegraph, she said there was “no point” in her running for party leader “when most MPs disagree” with her.
