LONDON – Britain's Conservative Party elected Kemi Badenoch as its new leader on Saturday as it tries to recover from a crushing election defeat that ended 14 years in power.

Badenoch (pronounced BADE-enock), the first black woman to lead a major British political party, defeated rival lawmaker Robert Jenrick in a vote of nearly 100,000 members of the right-wing Conservatives. also known as the Tories.

She received 53,806 votes in online and postal voting by party members, to Jenrick's 41,388.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer congratulated Badenoch in a post on X, saying: “Becoming the first black leader of a Westminster party is a proud moment for our country. I look forward to working with you and your party in the interests of the British people.”

But many of the congratulations were accompanied by criticism. Labor Party leader Ellie Reeves said: “Kemi has been part of the chaos of the last 14 years.”

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey acknowledged their victory at

“The election of Kemi Badenoch as leader has completed the Tories’ shift to the right,” Scottish National Party deputy leader Keith Brown said in a statement.

Badenoch is on the right-wing fringe of her center-right party, Tony Travers, a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told NBC News, and is seen by party members as someone who speaks “common sense” and is likely to be the candidate for it is Labor least wanted to win.

“As the first Black leader of a major political party, she has an interesting position on racial issues,” Travers said. She is “much less enthusiastic about progressive interpretations of the place of people of color in society than many white people on the progressive left, which will be difficult for Labor to deal with.”

Badenoch replaces former prime minister Rishi Sunak, who led the Conservatives to their worst election result since 1832 in July. The Conservatives lost more than 200 seats, falling to 121 seats.

The new leader's daunting task is to try to restore the party's reputation after years of division, scandal and economic turmoil, condemn Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer's policies on key issues such as the economy and immigration, and support the Conservatives in the to return to power in the next elections. due by 2029.

“The task before us is hard but simple,” Badenoch said in a victory speech to a room full of Conservative lawmakers, staffers and journalists in London. She said the party's job was to hold the Labor government to account and develop commitments and a plan for government.

Travers says Badenoch needs to consider whether the party should lean further to the right and woo some of the supporters it lost to right-wing populist Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, or “try to get closer to the center again” and on To appeal to the party to win in the general election, it would need to attract more centrist voters.

Despite what Travers describes as a “historically terrible” outcome for the Conservatives, the “party has a remarkable ability to regenerate, recover and fight back,” although it remains to be seen what a more fragmented political landscape will bring in the coming years could .

In the United Kingdom, general elections do not take place on fixed dates but must take place at least every five years. Prime ministers can choose when to hold them and often attempt to do so when they are confident they can win.

Addressing the party's election defeat, Badenoch said: “We have to be honest – honest about the fact that we have made mistakes, honest about the fact that we have neglected standards.”

“It is time to tell the truth, stand up for our principles, plan for our future, reshape our politics and our thinking and give our party and our country the fresh start they deserve,” Badenoch said .

Badenoch, business secretary in Sunak's government, was born in London to Nigerian parents and spent much of her childhood in the West African country.

The 44-year-old former software engineer portrays herself as a disruptor, advocating for a low-tax, free-market economy and promising to “rewire, reboot and reprogram” the British state.

A critic of multiculturalism and a self-proclaimed enemy of the woke, Badenoch has criticized gender-neutral bathrooms and government plans to reduce carbon emissions in the UK. During the leadership campaign she was criticized for saying that “not all cultures are equally valid” and that maternity pay was too high.

Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the Conservative Party was likely to “move to the right in both its economic and social policies” under Badenoch.

He predicted that Badenoch would “pursue what you might call the boats, boilers and bathrooms strategy… focusing very heavily on the transgender issue, the immigration issue and skepticism about progress towards net zero. “

While the Conservative Party does not represent the country as a whole – its 132,000 members are largely wealthy, older white men – its upper ranks have become significantly more diverse.

Badenoch is the third female leader of the Tories after Margaret Thatcher and Liz Truss, who both became prime ministers. She is the second Conservative leader with a non-white background after Sunak and the first with African roots. In contrast, the centre-left Labor Party has always been led only by white men.

Badenoch is a combative politician known for taking on journalists, Labor politicians and even actor David Tennant. She called the “Doctor Who” actor a “rich, left-wing, white male star who is so blinded by ideology that he can't see the optics of attacking the only black woman in government” after he said earlier this year said at an awards ceremony that he wished she would keep her mouth shut.

She will get her first chance to show off as party leader when she takes on Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) on Wednesday. The weekly political tradition involves verbal confrontations as the prime minister and opposition leader try to outdo each other in front of an often raucous House of Commons.