FILE PHOTO: British Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride walks on Downing Street, in London, Britain, May 22, 2024. Reuters/Hollie Adams/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's opposition Conservatives named Mel Stride as finance policy chief and Priti Patel as foreign policy chief on Monday, Sky News reported, appointments which suggest new leader, Kemi Badenoch, would try to unite the party's often warring factions.
Badenoch, who became the Conservatives' new leader and the first Black woman to a head a major British political party on Saturday, has pledged to return the party to its founding principles, a promise some feared could see a move to the right.
But the appointment of Stride, a moderate who was a former work and pensions under former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as finance minister and Patel, a right-wing former interior minister, as foreign minister could suggest Badenoch will try to accommodate both wings of the once-dominant party.
(Reporting by Sarah Young, Muvija M and Elizabeth Piper; editing by William James)
