Kemi Badenoch is demanding her top team stop the squabbling to boost Tory appeal
KEMI Badenoch is demanding her top team to stop the squabbling to boost Tory appeal – but a third of party voters say she won’t fight the next election.
The new leader packed her new line-up with allies vowing to “win back the trust of the public” after the devastating July national poll.
Fifteen of her backers were rewarded with frontbench positions as she “draws on the talents of people” from across the party, she said.
Ms Badenoch said: “Our party’s problems will only be solved with a team effort, and I am confident my shadow cabinet ministers will deliver effective opposition as we seek to win back the trust of the public.
“We will now get to work holding Labour to account and rebuilding our party based on Conservative principles and values. The process of renewing our great party has now begun.”
But there wasn’t a role for former leadership rival Tom Tugendhat or ex-Home Secretary James Cleverly who will not to take up positions.
Ex-Policing Minister Chris Philp is promoted to the home affairs brief, Ed Argar is handed the health role and Andrew Griffith is given shadow Business Secretary.
Leadership finalist Robert Jenrick had already accepted the Justice role, Mel Stride takes up the shadow Chancellor position and Priti Patel is given the foreign affairs role.
But a poll in the lead-up to Ms Badenoch’s victory showed 43 per cent of voters think it’s unlikely she will be in post to fight Labour at the next election.
The survey carried out by Opinium also found that 36 per cent of voters who backed the Tories this year also think it’s unlikely she will be in position, with 40 per cent saying she will.
Badenoch won 53,806 votes from party members with runner-up Robert Jenrick winning just 41,388 in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak.
Labour party chair Ellie Reeves said: “Instead of turning the page on 14 years of Tory government, Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet shows that the Conservatives have learnt nothing.
“How can the new Conservative leader claim to be changing the Tory Party when most of her team were ministers for Liz Truss as they crashed Britain’s economy, or claim to want to uphold standards when most went AWOL for the vote on Boris Johnson’s antics at Partygate?”
MEMBERS JOY NIGEL
By NOA HOFFMAN
REFORM UK membership rose 1,500 to 95,000 after Kemi Badenoch won the Tory race, its leader Nigel Farage boasted yesterday.
At a rally for his pal Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, Mr Farage blasted Ms Badenoch as a “continuity candidate”.