Kemi Badenoch

Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch ( ; née Adegoke; born 2 January 1980) is a British politician who has been the Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party since 2024. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Saffron Walden since 2017. She was the Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade from 2022 until 2024. She also was the Minister for Women and Equalities from 2022 to 2024.

She served in Boris Johnson's second government as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities at the Government Equalities Office from 2020 to 2022.

Personal life
Badenoch was born in Wimbledon, London. Her parents are of Nigerian origin. Her childhood was spent in part in the Nigerian capital Lagos and the United States. She returned to the United Kingdom at the age of 16. She is married to Hamish Badenoch. The couple have three children.

Conservative leadership candidacies

In July 2022, Badenoch announced her candidacy for Leader of the Conservative Party in the 2022 leadership election. She was eliminated in the fourth round of voting on 19 July 2022.

Badenoch was seen as a frontrunner in the 2024 Conservative Party leadership election early on in the election. On 28 July 2024, she announced she was running in the election to be the new Tory leader and Leader of the Opposition. After several rounds of voting, she faced Robert Jenrick. In the Member's vote, Badenoch defeated Jenrick with 56.5% of the vote on 31 October 2024. She was then declared the winner of the race, and thus Leader of the Conservative Party on 2 November.

 Leader of the Opposition 
In her acceptance speech on 2 November 2024, Badenoch promised to "renew" the Conservative Party. She became the first black leader of any major UK political party and the fourth woman to lead the Conservative Party. In June 2025, after the agreement to return the Chagos Archipelago located in the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius, Kemi Badenoch called the agreement "terrible", "and why on earth" should British taxpayers pay for tax cuts in Mauritius.

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Other websites

Category:1980 births
Category:Living people
Category:Members of the British House of Commons for English constituencies
Category:Politicians from London
Category:UK MPs 2017–2019
Category:UK MPs 2019–2024

Category:Conservative Party (UK) MPs
Category:Black British people
Category:UK MPs 2024–present
Category:Leaders of the Opposition (United Kingdom)
Category:Leaders of the Conservative Party (UK)