CNN
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Britain’s humiliated Conservative Party elected Kemi Badenoch as its new leader on Saturday, turning to a right-wing favorite who has railed against identity politics, transgender rights and government spending to rebuild his reputation after a devastating election defeat.

Badenoch defeated Robert Jenrick in a vote of party members by 53,806 votes to 41,000, after a months-long battle to succeed Rishi Sunak as party leader. She is the first black woman to lead a major British political party.

Her election will cause a shift to the right in Britain’s political discourse over the next few years, leading to a jarring stylistic clash between the new opposition leader and Keir Starmer, the staid and straightforward Labor prime minister.

Badenoch, who took the podium, said it was “the greatest honor to be elected leader of the party that has given me so much.”

She told Tory supporters the tasks ahead of them: holding the Labor government to account and preparing for government with “a clear plan”. She added that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “realized far too late the dangers of not having such a plan.”

Badenoch continued that the party must be honest “about the fact that we have made mistakes, honest about the fact that we have neglected standards.”

Concluding her remarks, the new Tory leader said: “It is time to tell the truth, stand up for our principles, plan for our future, reshape our politics and our thinking and deliver it to our party and our country give them the new beginning they deserve. It’s time to get down to business. It’s time for a renewal.”

Badenoch, who enjoys confrontation and has received only muted support from her own MPs in her various moves for the leadership, has engaged in US-style cultural clashes on a range of issues, inspiring grassroots members on the Conservative right wing in the process.

Their task now is to revitalize a party that is still struggling with the worst election result in its history. The Tories were forced out of government in July’s general election, rising from 372 to 121 seats, reflecting public anger over their management of the economy, crime, immigration and standards of public life.

Both candidates had insisted the Tories can return to power at the next election, which will be held in 2029 or sooner. But it will be a tall order for a bloc still marked by an era that ended in disaster, and Badenoch’s own involvement in the failed governments of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak could prove an obstacle.

And while Saturday’s result finally ends a lengthy period of limbo at the party’s leadership, it will do nothing to silence the cacophony of competing voices over where the Conservatives should plant their flag.

Two Conservatives stood in this election, but many in the Labor Party feel they have won it.

The leadership contest was billed as a referendum on the party’s future and whether it would devote its energy to winning back voters lost to the center or the right.

But the answer was clarified when two barely tested right-wingers made it to the final membership vote after a divided party eliminated all moderates and self-proclaimed unifiers from the race. Badenoch, who some in the party found difficult to work with, won the support of just 42 Conservative MPs before the vote went to members.

Badenoch and Jenrick made dueling populist appeals to members during the election campaign, with the latter pledging more forcefully to focus his attention on winning back right-leaning voters who are particularly concerned about increasing migration to Britain.

Neither is particularly well known to most Britons, although Badenoch achieved greater prominence as a minister and was often involved in controversial debates with journalists.

Badenoch, a former banker who grew up in Nigeria, was a minister in the equality, economic, housing and trade portfolios during the Conservatives’ term. She will be the fourth female leader of the Conservatives, a dividing line from Labor, which has previously only been led by men.

Badenoch has defended the actions of the British Empire and spoken out against critical race theory, which she says is becoming commonplace in British institutions such as schools and hospital trusts. She attempted to change Britain’s equality law to define sex as biological, which sparked criticism from trans rights groups.

And during her election campaign she made unwelcome headlines when she claimed statutory maternity pay was “excessive” and joked that up to 10% of Britain’s 500,000 civil servants “should be in prison”.

Badenoch was born in Britain and returned to the country as a teenager after stints in Nigeria and the USA. As a teenager, he worked briefly at McDonald’s and later trained as a computer scientist. In an interview with the Spectator in 2022, she said her conservatism developed during her studies as a “reaction to the very pampered, entitled, privileged metropolitan elites in training” she encountered there.

Her compelling background and uncompromising language make her well placed to work to rebuild the party’s right flank, which collapsed after failed promises to reduce both legal and illegal migration to Britain. The populist Reform UK party, led by career rabble-rouser Nigel Farage, slashed the Conservative vote share in July’s election, appealing to long-time Tory voters worried about newcomers to the country.

But the Tories have been decimated on two fronts, and Badenoch has appealed less to traditional, wealthier and more pro-European Britons, who have left the party in favor of Labor and the Liberal Democrats, another party that orbits the Tories in Parliament.

Badenoch, who has been described as aggressive by some of her staff, admitted to the BBC this week that she might moderate her approach if elected, telling the corporation: “I have to be aware that I have a higher tolerance for things than others, and I think part of being a leader is being able to calibrate yourself so that you can help lead other people.”

Although Badenoch is an outspoken supporter of early Brexit, she has toned down her rhetoric on Europe and contrasted with Jenrick by pledging to work with the European Union. She has neither ruled out nor committed to withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights, the deal that became a bogeyman among some conservatives after it blocked government attempts to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

This has been a Rubicon between mainstream conservatives and their more radical colleagues for years; A public referendum on the issue would be painful and heated, similar to the Brexit vote in 2016, and the move would further isolate Britain from Europe at a time when even leading Brexiteers are struggling to make sense of the gains to articulate the project.

When it comes to politics, however, Badenoch is certain to pull the opposition party to the right. She has advocated for moves to de-regulate and shrink the size of the state and has proudly described her “hardline view on immigration”, writing in the Telegraph in September that not all cultures are “equally valid”.

The Labor Party has been relaxed both publicly and privately about the outcome of the race. A Labor MP told CNN this week that “neither will last two years” – but that Badenoch is “a marginally greater threat” than Jenrick because she can “think outside the box on issues”.

Starmer’s first months in power have not been smooth, but Labor’s first budget, published on Wednesday, allowed her to define her economic priorities and draw further contrast with a Conservative group that most voters still associate with chaos and infighting .

Still, Badenoch will find Labor’s lukewarm public support reassuring; The party won just a third of voters but almost two-thirds of seats in the election, and Starmer’s approval ratings have fallen rapidly since he came to power.

Badenoch’s first priority will be to define himself ahead of Labour. An ill-timed leadership contest is immediately overshadowed by the US presidential election on Tuesday; Badenoch will face Starmer for the first time in Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.