Why I’m thrilled the Tories have chosen Kemi Badenoch

The Conservatives like to make a big deal about their diversity, having had three women leaders, the “first Asian prime minister” and the “most diverse cabinet in history”. Of the 31 who were appointed to Liz Truss’s short-lived top team, 10 were women and seven people of colour.

And yet, you might be wondering how, and why, Kemi Badenoch, a Black woman — the Wimbledon-born daughter of Nigerian parents, whose childhood was spent in part in Lagos and the United States — has become the head of a political party whose election campaign was part-funded by businessman and Tory donor Frank Hester, who once said Diane Abbott “makes you want to hate all Black women” and that she should be shot.

In September, Badenoch was talking about the Conservative Party being seen as racist. “If my being here, if my standing up as a senior member of the Conservative Party helps to destroy that myth, then I will continue to do so, no matter what. I’m here to defend my party.” So she has herself said the quiet part out loud — that she sees her role as defending the Conservatives from accusations of racism simply by her presence as a Black woman. This is what I find tragically hilarious about the ascent of Badenoch, because she has often attacked the idea that being Black means you have to think a certain way, arguing that it is racially regressive. And yet she argues that her skin colour determines whether her brand of politics is racist or not.

This is someone who has said it is illegal for teachers to teach white privilege as a fact, despite the reports by her own government showing that, relative to white people, Black people are discriminated against in employment and within the justice system. This is someone who argued for forgiveness for Hester after comments which she admitted were racist. This is someone who said Martin Luther King’s dream of ending systemic racism was completed in the 1990s.

This summer, when David Tennant told her, the equalities minister, to “shut up” because he disagrees with her views on trans, she accused him of racism, calling him “a rich, lefty, white male celebrity so blinded by ideology, he can’t see the optics of attacking the only Black woman in government”.

Just weeks after she described the maternity pay that enables mothers to participate in the world of work as “excessive”, a Tory MP said she shouldn’t be the Conservative leader because she’s focused on being a mother. She responded by arguing for men to take time off as well. In both cases, when she was attacked by the same bigotry she had fuelled, she condemned it.  This is just a game to her. She was the trade secretary in a “get Brexit done” government, but is also on record admitting it had been bad for British business, and “more traumatic for (the car) industry than others”. These are Boris Johnson levels of integrity, which means she can never be trusted. Too many people have learned the lessons to be fooled again.  So I’m thrilled that Kemi Badenoch has made it to the top of her party. Her downfall will be fun to watch — mainly because she, and people like her, built the trapdoor through which she will fall. I can’t wait.

Meanwhile, the Conservative Party’s survival instinct is beginning to kick in. Party members resisted the lure of Robert Jenrick telling them what he thought they wanted to hear and chose a conviction politician who will maximise their chances at the next election. Not that the Tories’ prospects of returning to power after a one-term Labour government are good. Just because Keir Starmer has made a stumbling start and the Tories have taken a one-point lead in one opinion poll does not mean Kemi Badenoch is on the road to No 10. Any leader would face an almost impossible task.

The Independent