KEMI Badenoch has been announced as the new leader of the Conservative Party.
The MP for North West Essex beat Robert Jenrick after a three-month-long leadership contest to replace Rishi Sunak.
Bob Blackman, chair of the 1922 Committee, confirmed Badenoch received more than 53,000 votes as Jenrick secured 41,000.
In her first speech since becoming the new Conservative Party leader, Badenoch took aim at Keir Starmer saying he's discovering the “perils of not having a plan”.
Along with thanking her leadership contest rival Jenrick she said: “It is the most enormous honour to be elected to this role, to lead a party that I love, the party that has given me so much.”
She then went on to thank her husband, Hamish Badenoch, and Sunak.
The former prime minister resigned as leader of the party following a seismic defeat in July where the Tories lost more than 250 seats in their worst General Election result in modern times.
Badenoch’s campaign to become the new Tory leader has been controversial several times as she has faced backlash for appearing to criticise statutory maternity pay in an interview at the Conservative Party conference.
She later rowed back, insisting that she did “believe in maternity pay” but thought business regulation was too burdensome, while sources close to her accused rival leadership candidates of looking to “score political hits” and not being “serious about getting back into government.”
Last weekend, whilst appearing on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show, Badenoch clashed with presenter Martin Geissler over whether Scotland is in a “voluntary union” as she argued it was not “one where everybody can rush out at a particular point”.
She also struggled to defend her previous comments on “reprogramming devolution”, which she made during the Tory Party conference.
