A British politician of Nigerian descent, Kemi Badenoch, and 10 other politicians from the Conservative Party have declared interest to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom by September 5.
Ms Badenoch announced her intention to run in an Op-Ed published in the Times of London on Saturday, saying she would run on a “smart and nimble centre-right vision.”
“I’m putting myself forward in this leadership election because I want to tell the truth. It’s the truth that will set us free,” her Op-Ed read.
According to Oddschecker, Ms Badenoch is one of the five top contenders for the seat. Others are Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, and Tom Tungedhat in that order.
Ms Badenoch is centring her campaign around tax cuts, low regulation and attacking U.K.’s net zero target, saying “…too many policies like the net zero target (are) setup with no thoughts of effects on industries of the poorer parts of this country.”
“The consequence is simply to displace emissions to other countries, unilateral economic disarmament and that is why we need change,” she said.
Tax cuts is perhaps an attractive campaign headline for aspirants and contenders following the current financial realities of the U.K. and its effect on Britons.
Ms Badenoch, like other aspirants, will need to have 20 MPs backing her at the end of Tuesday in order to get into the first round of voting.
She alongside four of her colleagues last Wednesday in a joint letter announced their resignation from government as former party leader Boris Johnson resigned from his position.
She resigned as Minister for Local Government, Faith and Communities at the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and as Minister for Equalities.
Ms Badenoch, 42, born to Nigerian parents in Wimbledon, London, spent some part of her childhood in Lagos and later returned to the U.K at 16.
She studied Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Sussex; worked as a software engineer at Logica from where she went on to work at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group as a systems analyst before working as an associate director at Coutts and later as a director at The Spectator magazine.
Ms Badenoch’s foray into politics happened in 2005 when she joined the Conservative Party at the age of 25. She contested in the 2010 general elections for the Dulwich and West Norwood constituency against Labour’s Tessa Jowell and came third.
In 2015, when Victoria Borwick resigned her seat on the London Assembly and Suella Fernandes, who had also been elected to the House of Commons declined to fill the vacancy, Ms Badenoch was declared the new Assembly Member. She went on to retain her seat in the Assembly in the 2016 election.
She was elected as MP for Saffron Walden constituency in the 2017 general election and was re-elected in 2019.
Ms Badenoch has previously held roles as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education.
She is a former Vice-Chair of the Conservative Party and former member of the Justice Select Committee. Prior to her election as a Member of Parliament, she was a Conservative member of the London Assembly, acting as the GLA Conservative’s spokesperson for the economy.
Top on the list of contenders is Rishi Sunak, former finance minister who formally announced his entry to the race through a campaign video on Friday.
Mr Sunak was seen as a possible successor of Boris Johnson for several months after he won praises for overseeing Britain’s initial financial response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He soon fell off the ladder of praises after it was revealed that he was involved in PartyGates, for which he later apologised.
Mr Sunak has also received backlash from Britons and the opposition for what is described as the worst cost of living crisis in decades; real wages dropping to their lowest levels in more than 21 years and inflation hitting a 40-year high of 9.1 per cent in May.
Despite all these, he still tops the list of possible successors. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, on Tuesday pulled out of the race to back Mr Sunak.
Launching his campaign Tuesday afternoon, Mr Sunak said, “we need to have a grown up conversation about where we are, how we got here and what we intend to do about it.”
“I have a plan to stir our economy through these headwinds. We need to return to traditional conservative values and that means, honesty and responsibility not fairytales,” he said in his campaign speech.
Mr Sunak insists on not cutting tax like his counterparts until the inflation is gripped. His campaign slogan reads: ‘Restore Trust; Restore the Economy; Reunite the Country.’
Trade minister Penny Mordaunt, like Mr Sunak, is one of the favourites to replace Mr Johnson.
She announced her intention to run on Sunday. Oddschecker puts her in second place after Mr Sunak.
Her entry into parliament was in 2010. She later joined the cabinet under Theresa May, serving as international development and defence secretary.
In 2019, Ms Mordaunt became the first woman to serve as defence minister
After last month’s confidence vote, Ms Mordaunt declined to comment on whether she backed Mr Johnson, raising eyebrows among Westminster observers when she said: “I didn’t choose this prime minister.”
Declaring, she said the party “leadership needs to become a little less about the leader and a lot more about the ship.”
The foreign secretary announced her entry into the race in The Telegraph on Sunday.
Like most aspirants, she pledged to cut taxes “from day one,” to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.
Ms Truss last December, became the chief negotiator with the European Union on the UK’s Brexit deal and has held multiple cabinet positions.
According to CNN, she has a formidable and dedicated team around her — some of whom previously worked in Number 10 — which has been producing slick videos and photos of her looking thoroughly statesmanlike.
“As Foreign Secretary, I have helped to lead the international response to Putin’s war in Ukraine and delivered a tough sanctions package that has led the world, by imposing real pain on Putin and the Kremlin,” her piece read.
“Truss is popular among Conservative members, who would pick the eventual winner of a contest. But Johnson’s downfall could simultaneously tarnish anyone in his cabinet, meaning Conservative voters could turn to a backbencher to take the mantle,” CNN said.
Ms Truss was one of the few government officials who stood by Boris Johnson as resignations crippled his administration last week.
The former health minister who pulled the lid off the resignation barrel announced his intention on Sunday via Twitter.
“The next Conservative leader needs to be able to unite the party and win an election. The next Prime Minister needs integrity, experience, and a tax-cutting plan for economic growth.That’s why I’m standing.” he tweeted.
He has run for party leadership twice in the past — in 2016, after the Brexit referendum, and in 2019, when Mr Johnson was ultimately elected. He served as chancellor from 2019 to 2020.
Others in the race are: Tom Tungedhat, Chair Foreign Affairs Committee; Nadhim Zahawi, New Education Chancellor; Jeremy Hunt, Former Health and Foreign Secretary; Suella Braverman, Attorney General; Rehman Chishti, new Forreign Office minister.
Each aspirant needs to be backed by 20 Members of Parliament (MP) which makes them eligible for the first round of voting.
In the first round of voting, candidates with less than 30 votes will be eliminated. It continues to the second round where candidates with the fewest votes will continue to be eliminated.
Voting will continue until only two candidates are left. At this point, postal votes from 160,000 tory members across the country will decide who becomes the next party leader and effectively, prime minister.
Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of the Conservative Party, on Monday, announced that a new leader would be announced on September 5, the same day that the British parliament returns from its summer recess.
Chiamaka Okafor is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.
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