Berliner Boersenzeitung - UK's battered Tory party elects Badenoch as new leader

EUR -
AED 3.843876
AFN 71.46757
ALL 98.334246
AMD 408.921785
ANG 1.890704
AOA 954.443474
ARS 1053.32585
AUD 1.613486
AWG 1.883771
AZN 1.777411
BAM 1.957876
BBD 2.118145
BDT 125.3629
BGN 1.957013
BHD 0.39446
BIF 3099.055767
BMD 1.046539
BND 1.413685
BOB 7.275713
BRL 6.06951
BSD 1.049112
BTN 88.441624
BWP 14.331193
BYN 3.43314
BYR 20512.173424
BZD 2.114642
CAD 1.476149
CDF 3003.568546
CHF 0.92896
CLF 0.037025
CLP 1021.630219
CNY 7.576684
CNH 7.599007
COP 4588.813899
CRC 534.605448
CUC 1.046539
CUP 27.733296
CVE 110.379907
CZK 25.325311
DJF 186.808039
DKK 7.458059
DOP 63.219772
DZD 139.884617
EGP 51.926973
ERN 15.698092
ETB 130.810926
FJD 2.382918
FKP 0.826051
GBP 0.834804
GEL 2.857518
GGP 0.826051
GHS 16.522516
GIP 0.826051
GMD 74.304489
GNF 9040.497654
GTQ 8.100355
GYD 219.482679
HKD 8.143422
HNL 26.50985
HRK 7.465237
HTG 137.694658
HUF 410.442515
IDR 16664.414117
ILS 3.813119
IMP 0.826051
INR 88.232015
IQD 1374.256881
IRR 44046.230248
ISK 145.09192
JEP 0.826051
JMD 166.494914
JOD 0.742309
JPY 161.133064
KES 135.589536
KGS 90.828533
KHR 4210.423334
KMF 490.77458
KPW 941.885118
KRW 1464.203166
KWD 0.322093
KYD 0.874227
KZT 523.84534
LAK 23039.424621
LBP 93943.491644
LKR 305.273628
LRD 188.824765
LSL 18.967508
LTL 3.090159
LVL 0.633041
LYD 5.134443
MAD 10.539974
MDL 19.17733
MGA 4902.196931
MKD 61.570856
MMK 3399.119344
MNT 3556.14103
MOP 8.407012
MRU 41.716441
MUR 48.894341
MVR 16.169403
MWK 1819.1285
MXN 21.51026
MYR 4.672826
MZN 66.874137
NAD 18.967508
NGN 1761.461771
NIO 38.600552
NOK 11.639084
NPR 141.509665
NZD 1.794919
OMR 0.402907
PAB 1.049112
PEN 3.973312
PGK 4.225996
PHP 61.721228
PKR 291.376995
PLN 4.317163
PYG 8173.665089
QAR 3.826984
RON 4.97703
RSD 116.988424
RUB 108.818843
RWF 1432.404838
SAR 3.9296
SBD 8.781084
SCR 14.253917
SDG 629.495812
SEK 11.542347
SGD 1.411358
SHP 0.826051
SLE 23.782645
SLL 21945.414172
SOS 599.529847
SRD 37.145882
STD 21661.253876
SVC 9.179732
SYP 2629.461642
SZL 18.962102
THB 36.348931
TJS 11.182634
TMT 3.673354
TND 3.327532
TOP 2.451098
TRY 36.233815
TTD 7.125554
TWD 33.959925
TZS 2773.329504
UAH 43.536654
UGX 3887.120826
USD 1.046539
UYU 44.716123
UZS 13458.267417
VES 48.752124
VND 26595.184038
VUV 124.247268
WST 2.92151
XAF 656.646852
XAG 0.034486
XAU 0.000398
XCD 2.828325
XDR 0.802451
XOF 656.653133
XPF 119.331742
YER 261.556352
ZAR 18.95356
ZMK 9420.11208
ZMW 28.927667
ZWL 336.985279
  • RBGPF

    0.8100

    61

    +1.33%

  • NGG

    0.1500

    63.26

    +0.24%

  • CMSC

    0.0578

    24.73

    +0.23%

  • SCS

    0.4500

    13.72

    +3.28%

  • GSK

    0.1900

    34.15

    +0.56%

  • BTI

    -0.0500

    37.33

    -0.13%

  • BCC

    8.7200

    152.5

    +5.72%

  • AZN

    0.7700

    66.4

    +1.16%

  • RIO

    0.6300

    62.98

    +1%

  • BCE

    0.2500

    27.02

    +0.93%

  • RELX

    -0.1800

    46.57

    -0.39%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    6.79

    +0.29%

  • CMSD

    0.1200

    24.58

    +0.49%

  • JRI

    0.1600

    13.37

    +1.2%

  • BP

    -0.4000

    29.32

    -1.36%

  • VOD

    0.1800

    8.91

    +2.02%

UK's battered Tory party elects Badenoch as new leader
UK's battered Tory party elects Badenoch as new leader / Photo: BENJAMIN CREMEL - AFP

UK's battered Tory party elects Badenoch as new leader

The UK's battle-scarred Conservatives on Saturday elected "anti-woke" candidate Kemi Badenoch as its new leader, replacing Rishi Sunak, who quit after the party's disastrous showing in the July general election.

Text size:

Badenoch, 44, came out on top in the two-horse race with former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, winning 57 percent of the votes of party members.

Badenoch, who becomes the first black leader of a UK-wide political party, said it was an "enormous honour" to assume the role, but that "the task that stands before us is tough."

"We have to be honest about the fact we made mistakes" and "let standards slip," she said.

"It is time to get down to business, it is time to renew," she added.

The combative former equalities minister now faces the daunting task of reuniting a divided and weakened party emphatically ousted from power in July after 14 years in charge.

Badenoch will become the official leader of the opposition and face off against Labour's Keir Starmer in the House of Commons every Wednesday for the traditional Prime Minister's Questions.

However, she will be leading a much-reduced cohort of Tory MPs in the chamber following the party's dismal election showing.

She must plot a strategy to regain public trust while stemming the flow of support to the right-wing Reform UK party, led by Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage.

Having campaigned on a right-wing platform, she also faces the prospect of future difficulties within the ranks of Tory lawmakers, which includes many centrists.

- 'No wallflower' -

Badenoch, born in London to Nigerian parents and raised in Lagos, has called for a return to conservative values, accusing her party of having become increasingly liberal on societal issues such as gender identity.

She describes herself as a straight-talker, a trait that has caused controversy on the campaign trail.

Badenoch was widely criticised after suggesting that statutory maternity pay on small businesses was "excessive" and sparked further furore when she joked that up to 10 percent of Britain's half a million civil servants were so bad that they "should be in prison".

On immigration, she said that "not all cultures are equally valid" when deciding who should be allowed to live in the UK.

Jenrick, 42, had also staked out a tough position on the issue, and resigned as immigration minister in Sunak's government after saying that his controversial plan to deport migrants to Rwanda did not go far enough.

The pair faced off after Tory MPs whittled down the original six candidates during a series of votes.

Former foreign minister James Cleverly, from the party's more centrist faction, had looked certain to make the last two, but was surprisingly eliminated in the final vote by lawmakers last month.

Badenoch, an MP since 2017, has risen from relative obscurity just a few years ago to now lead the country's second-biggest party.

The Brexit supporter has made a name for herself as a trenchant critic of "identity politics".

According to Blue Ambition, a biography written by Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft, Badenoch became "radicalised" into right-wing politics while at university in the UK.

He described her view of student activists there as the "spoiled, entitled, privileged metropolitan elite-in-training".

She has insisted criticism of her abrasive style is misplaced.

"I'm not a wallflower. And people will often take your strengths and present them as weaknesses," she told Sky News.

She worked in IT and banking before entering politics around a decade ago, eventually winning a seat in the London Assembly in 2015.

Elected to parliament two years later, she was supported as she rose through the Tory ranks by one-time party heavyweight Michael Gove.

Badenoch held various ministerial roles during the tail end of the Conservatives' 14-year tenure in power.

(P.Werner--BBZ)