Kemi Badenoch tipped to run for Tory leader as she scrapes home along with seven other Nigerians

NIGERIAN-born trade and industry secretary Kemi Badenoch has once more been forecast to be one of the leading Conservative Party leadership contenders to replace Rishi Sunak after narrowly managing to retail her North West Essex seat in Thursday's elections.

Mrs Badenoch, 44, was a candidate in the 2022 Tory leadership election which saw her come fourth behind Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt. Following Thursday's elections in which the Tories were comprehensively beaten by the Labour Party, Mr Sunak has resigned and has announced that he will be standing down as party leader.

This will spark a leadership contest and with Ms Mordaunt and Ms Truss both losing their seats, Ms Badenoch has been listed as one the main contenders for the top job. Other favourites are former minister of state for security Tom Tugendhat, former home secretaries  Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.

There is some speculation that Reform UK leader and Clacton MP Nigel Farage could take the reins of the Tory party by defecting from inside Westminster. Bookies have tipped Mrs Badenoch to become the candidate of the right of the party after she managed to hold on to her seat despite an almighty scare from the Labour Party.

Mrs Badenoch narrowly won the new North West Essex seat after seeing her majority slashed from 27,594 to just 2,610. She polled 19,360 votes, less than half of the 39,714 she got in 2019, managing to see off the Labour Party's Issy Waite, a 21-year-old student activist from Suffolk, who got16,750 votes, double the number her party polled in 2019.

Grant St Clair-Armstrong, standing as an Independent but still on the ballot papers as Reform UK’s candidate, was third with 7,668, Liberal Democrat Smita Rajesh was fourth with 6,055 and the Green Party’s Edward Gildea fifth with 2,846. Independents Andrew Green (852), Erik Bonino (699) and Niko Omilana (156) completed the eight candidates.

This result is in stark contrast to the 2019 election, which saw Mrs Badenoch increase her vote share to 63%, when she became the first woman to represent the Saffron Walden constituency, which had been Tory-held since 1922. On Thursday, a nervous-looking Mrs Badenoch was ushered into the count at Lord Butler Leisure Centre in Saffron Walden moments before returning officer Peter Holt, declared the result.

Other Nigerians who got elected on the night include  Chi Onwurah (Newcastle Central and West), Kate Osamor (Edmonton and Winchmore Hill), Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green), Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) and Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford). All of them were Labour MPs, with Helen Grant being the only other  Conservative to hold onto a seat, winning Maidstone and Malling with 14,146 votes.

Bim Afolabi, the Conservative candidate for Hitchin and Harpenden and former economic secretary to the treasury, lost his re-election bid after seven years in the Parliament, losing out to Labour’s Alistair Strathern. Josh Babarinde on the other hand made history, becoming the first Nigerian Liberal Democrats MP after he won Eastbourne by 23,742 votes, getting a majority of 12,204.