The face of modern Britain keeps changing. Last time, the Tory prime minister of Great Britain had an Indian face. Now, the Tory party leader has a Nigerian face. Kemi Badenoch, 44, is the new leader of the Conservative Party, which Rishi Sunak led to its worst defeat in British parliamentary history. A spectacular blow by a descendant of a former colony on Winston Churchill’s party.
Born in London to Nigerian parents, Badenoch rose from obscurity to become a combative believer in conservative values: anti-immigration, anti-woke, pro-family, lower taxes, and small state. Conservatives advocate “small” governments that don’t regulate—until they want governments to become big and bail out businesses too big to fail. She was business secretary in Sunak’s government. Badenoch says Britain “is not a dormitory for migrants to come here and make money”. In his unauthorised biography of Badenoch, author Michael Ashcroft says she became “radicalised” into rightwing politics as a reaction to English university students whom she described as “spoiled, entitled, privileged, metropolitan elites-in-training”. Some call her the “saviour of conservatism”.
A self-proclaimed “straight-talker” who tells “hard truths”, Badenoch declared, “I never have gaffes, I never have to clarify.” She criticised “excessive” maternity pay and contended 50,000 civil servants “should be in prison because they are very, very bad, leaking documents and undermining ministers”. She had to clarify her gaffe was a “joke”.
Still, Badenoch has more allure than the other Tory leadership contestants. The moderate, uncontroversial Tom Tugendhat was knocked out early. Indian-origin former home minister Priti Patel was described as a “piranha” by her own husband. Former foreign minister James Cleverly—whose mother is Sierra Leonean—made an unclever “joke” about using the date rape drug Rohypnol. Another aspirant, Robert Jenrick, a diehard Margaret Thatcher fan, gave his daughter the middle name “Thatcher”. But now, Thatcher’s Tories is a shambles.
Badenoch must reunite a fractious, weakened party, crushed from 365 MPs to 121 in the July elections. Tories are ignored by media, their press releases unread, their speeches unreported. Commentators say the Conservative campaign headquarters now resemble a “ghost ship”. As opposition leader, Badenoch will be in the limelight criticising the Labour government, which is battling several self-inflicted woes. But her biggest challenge is to regain public trust after 14 years of Tory misrule, scandals and outrageous silliness. She must attract young voters and stop Nigel Farage’s rightwing Reform UK party from stealing Conservative voters and agenda.
As an engineer, Badenoch says she knows how to “fix problems” and “get stuff done”. Nobody expects the diminished Tory party to return to power anytime soon to be fixing problems, mostly created by their own incompetence. Badenoch’s streak of independence—defying Brexit hardliners or shunning sycophancy, has won her respect. But she is also seen as scrappy and thin-skinned, getting embroiled in trivial quarrels, divisive on gender politics, vague on details with a penchant for “policy-light” speeches. A senior Tory member described her as “high reward but high risk”.
Badenoch believes only some migrants should be allowed into Britain because “not all cultures are equally valid”. British xenophobes agree. Badenoch, who spent her formative years in Nigeria, faces racism, disdain and condescension that Sunak did—insinuations that they don’t “get” British culture. And yet, here they are. Brexiteers championed Britain going global by resurrecting visions of the empire. Instead, the face of Britain goes Asian and African. This is not what the Tories meant when they coined the Brexit slogan—“Global Britain”.
Pratap is an author and journalist.