The next Conservative Party Leader has been confirmed as Kemi Badenoch.

It comes as Badenoch went against Robert Jenrick in the final vote by party members marking the end of a four-month-long race to replace Rishi Suynak.

Badenoch will now be at the helm of the Conservatives as the party looks to recover from the July election result which saw it return just 121 MPs.

Kemi Badenoch announced as the new Conservative Party leader

After the close of polls on Thursday, both candidates thanked their backers for their support throughout the contest.

Ms Badenoch described the party as a “family” and said that it is “much more to me than a membership organisation”.

Mr Jenrick also called for the party to “move past the drama” of recent years and “unite”.

“Together we can put an end to the excuses, move past the drama, and unite our party,” he wrote on X.

Immigration, the economy, and how the Conservatives can rebuild trust with the electorate and win back voters they lost at the election have all been discussed at length throughout the campaign.

The party lost seats to Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK in the July poll.

Dame Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly spent the summer campaigning alongside Mr Jenrick and Ms Badenoch after they put their names forward in the nominations at the end of July.

Dame Priti and Mr Stride were the first two contenders to be eliminated in September, leaving four by the time the party gathered in Birmingham for its autumn conference at the end of the month.

In the weeks since the final MP ballot, Mr Jenrick and Ms Badenoch have been travelling up and down the country in their attempts to secure member support.

At the start of the campaign, Ms Badenoch wrote in The Telegraph that the party “need to get back to first principles” and has been light on the details of specific policies she would enact.

Amid the events and speeches, Mr Jenrick criticised his opponent for offering up what he called “a promise of a plan” rather than more concrete policies.

He told the BBC’s Westminster Hour in October that “I think it’s disrespectful to the members and the public to ask for their votes without saying where you stand on the big issues facing our country today”.

The contest was triggered after Mr Sunak announced he would step aside in the wake of the party’s election defeat in the summer.

Earlier this week the former prime minister played down suggestions that he would be leaving Westminster for California, and told MPs that he would be spending more time in the “greatest place on earth”.

“If anyone needs me, I will be in Yorkshire,” he told Prime Minister’s Questions.

There was speculation earlier this year that the Richmond and Northallerton MP – who previously worked at a hedge fund in California – could be in line for a job in Silicon Valley.

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“Today is my last appearance at PMQs and I’m happy to confirm reports that I will now be spending more time in the greatest place on earth where the scenery is indeed worthy of a movie set, and everyone is a character,” he said.

“That’s right, if anyone needs me, I will be in Yorkshire.”

The Conservatives returned MPs in 121 seats at the July poll, down hundreds on their 2019 result, having secured less than 25% of the vote nationally.