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Claim: There are increasing reports on social media that the UK’s Conservative Party has voted that Kemi Badenoch should not lead them in the next UK elections.
Verdict: Misleading. These claims are misreporting an opinion poll as though it was a party decision made through election.
Full Text
There are increasing posts on social media alleging that the UK’s Conservative Party has voted that Kemi Badenoch should not lead them in the next UK elections.
Among those who have made the allegation is Accra-based Asaase Radio. They have designed a news card with the headline “Conservative Party votes that Kemi Badenoch should not lead them in the next UK elections.” The post on Facebook has since attracted nearly 2,000 responses, including likes, comments and shares.
Some comments under the post by Asaase Radio give the further impression that a concrete vote has been held that prevents Kemi Badenoch from leading the party. Some of these comments can be found here, and here.
Has the Conservative Party voted that Kemi Badenoch should not lead them in the next UK election?
DUBAWA decided to fact this claim because of its potential to mislead.
Verification
There has been no official vote within the Conservative Party rejecting Kemi Badenoch’s leadership or barring her from leading the party into the next election.
If such a vote had occurred, it would have been reported by major UK political news outlets such as BBC News, The Guardian, or The Telegraph. However, none of them has so far published any report on the matter.
The source of the claim appears to be a YouGov poll of Conservative Party members. The survey found that around 50 percent of members said they did not want Badenoch to lead the party into the next general election, while about 46 percent said they did.
The poll, conducted between 26 September and 2 October, surveyed 652 Conservative members.
Source: YouGov.co.uk || Results of the poll conducted by YouGov
In the UK, the Conservative Party’s leadership contest occurs only if the sitting leader resigns or loses a vote of no confidence. A confidence vote is triggered when at least 15% of Conservative MPs request one by writing to the chairman of the party’s backbench 1922 committee.
Conclusion
The YouGov poll, which appears to be the source of the claim that the Conservative Party has voted that Kemi Badenoch should not lead them in the next election, reflects the opinions of party members at the time and does not represent a formal party decision. No vote has been conducted by the Conservative Party’s Members of Parliament (MPs), its National Convention, or its grassroots membership to decide Badenoch’s status as leader.
