Kemi Badenoch, an often controversial figure in British politics, has become the first Black woman to lead the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party after she won the party’s election against Robert Jenrich.
According to The New York Times, Badenoch is expected to move the party farther to the right, closer in ideology to its American cousins, the Republican Party. Although she toned down some of her rhetoric, she has in the past been an ardent critic of “wokeness” and identity politics.
Badenoch told a group of Conservative Party leaders after her win that it is the honor of her life to represent the party as its leader.
“It is the most enormous honor to be elected to this role, to lead the party that I love, the party that has given me so much,” Badenoch said, smiling after she was announced the winner of the election between herself and Jenrich. “I hope that I will be able to repay that debt.”
Badenoch only committed to a vow to “reset our politics and our thinking” and to be “honest about the fact that we made mistakes,” but did not give any policy proposals, which she was cagey about during her run for the position.
According to experts on the Conservative Party, this is highly unusual.
According to Tim Bale, a professor of politics and an expert on the Conservative Party at Queen Mary University of London, “It’s quite unusual to go into a leadership contest eschewing the idea that you need to put together policies for the party.”
Bale also described Badenoch as a “thinking man’s Thatcherite cultural warrior,” which is not a compliment at all, given Margaret Thatcher’s propensity to use terminology like “the enemy within” to refer to striking coal miners.
According to Dorian Lynskey, the author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, “She (Thatcher) was such an oppositional figure, singling out certain enemies, for example the Argentine junta, unions, travelers, people on benefits, the left wing in general. She was unflinching and vicious in her attacks on them.”
Lynskey continued, “There was a sense she was conducting a war on certain sections of society. She referred to the miners as ‘the enemy within.’ This just was not the way politicians talk about their citizens. (UK’s Prime Minister in 2013) David Cameron does not do that; Tories before Thatcher did not do that. That aspect enraged people because they felt she was treating them with rhetorical and political violence. That encouraged them to respond with their own violence.”
Despite being an immigrant herself, Badenoch has emphasized her Nigerian heritage and often references her humble beginnings, describing experiences of growing up “somewhere where the lights didn’t come on, where we ran out of fuel.” However, she has also been a vocal proponent of reducing immigration levels in England.
Badenoch is also a Brexiteer, popularized by a figure often described as Britain’s Donald Trump, former prime minister Boris Johnson. She rose rapidly within his administration, and subsequently, within the Conservative Party.
Her ascent has some worried that she could set back the causes of racial justice and equality in England due to her alignment with far-right views.
According to Sunder Katwala, director of research institute British Future, “The question on the left is: Is this a cynical performative device by the right to champion an anti-woke, Black, right-wing politician to challenge antiracist policies, and therefore will it have regressive consequences?”
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