Kemi Badenoch enters the race to become the next Tory leader

Kemi Badenoch vowed the Conservatives would “speak the truth again” under her leadership as she announced her bid to head the party.

The frontrunner could be the last Conservative MP to take a tilt at the top job, with Suella Braverman struggling to secure enough backers.

Ahead of nominations closing on Monday, the shadow communities secretary said she wanted to rebuild the party based on core capitalist principles.

She said: “If I have the privilege to serve, we will speak the truth again. That is why today my campaign is launching with an explicit focus on renewing our party for 2030 – the first full year we can be back in Government and the first year of a new decade.

“We will renew by starting from first principles: we can’t control immigration until we re-confirm our belief in the nation state and the sovereign duty it has, above all else, to serve its own citizens.

“Our public services will never fully recover from the pandemic until we remember that government should do some things well, not everything badly.

“At the foundation of our renewal, and indeed the reassembly of the conservative family, is a confident set of principles about how our economy should work, and for whom it should work.

“The wealth of our nation is built upon our historic ability to capture the ingenuity and industry of our people, and the willingness of many to trade risk for reward.

“It’s become a dirty word, but our renewal must also mean a renewal for capitalism.”

Senior Tories said the party must learn the lessons of the election drubbing that took it to a record defeat.

Shadow Treasury minister John Glen said: "We've got to deal with the appalling defeat, learn lessons, show a bit of humility, contrition.

“We've seen a lot of volatility and I think that the leadership election process will allow all the candidates to be fully tested and I just want the membership to own the outcome, to be comfortable with it on the basis of a full scrutiny over a decent amount of time.

“That will lay the foundations as we seek to move forward and become an effective opposition and work towards rehabilitating our reputation.”

He added: “The party needs to unite. And I think what the country has been fed up with over the last few years is people not being prepared to unite behind the leader, and that is not the way to win an election, as we've seen.”

Ms Badenoch will become the sixth MP to enter the contest after Dame Priti Patel joined at the weekend.

The two women join Mel Stride, Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick.

Shadow communities secretary Ms Badenoch is the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Mr Sunak.

Contenders need a proposer, seconder and eight other backers to stand.

The parliamentary party will narrow the field down to four, who will make their case at the Conservative Party conference, which runs from September 29 to October 2.

The final two, picked by the parliamentary party, will then go to a vote of party members in an online ballot that will close on October 31, with the result announced on November 2.

Dame Priti is currently the least popular contender, at minus 28 points with the public and seven points with 2024 Conservative voters, according to polling by Savanta.

Mr Tugendhat is the most popular potential contender among both the public, at minus three points, and 2024 Conservative voters, at 21 points, the research shows.

Conservative MP Saqib Bhatti, who is backing Ms Patel, said the former home secretary has the “resolve” needed to bring the party together.

He told Times Radio: “Priti stands out head and shoulders because she has been involved in the party, she understands it, what drives the party, what motivates members.”