Kemi Badenoch has officially begun appointing her shadow cabinet, ahead of the first meeting of her new top team on Tuesday.
It comes after the former business secretary was declared the new party chief on Saturday in the closest Conservative leadership contest in history. Badenoch beat former immigration minister Robert Jenrick in a ballot of Tory members — winning by about 10,000 votes.
Badenoch won 53,806 votes (56.6 per cent) to Jenrick’s 41,318 (43.5 per cent).
The new Conservative Party leader has since begun to select her shadow cabinet, after senior Tories James Cleverly, Jeremy Hunt, Steve Barclay and Rishi Sunak all ruled themselves out for roles.
During the leadership race, Badenoch pledged to appoint all six her rivals to her first shadow cabinet, including Jenrick, Cleverly (ruled out), Tom Tugendhat, Mel Stride and Dame Priti Patel.
Badenoch’s frontbench appointees are as follows.
- Joint Conservative Party chairs – Nigel Huddleston and Dominic Johnson.
- Chief whip – Dame Rebecca Harris.
This post will be updated throughout the day.
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on X/Twitter here.
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