Kemi Badenoch: Britain's new anti-woke Tory leader

A fierce critic of the Left, Badenoch made history by becoming the first black woman to lead a British political party, and she has a plan to reverse the Conservative Party's fortunes

Yusra Naim

Kemi Badenoch: Britain's new anti-woke Tory leader

Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the UK’s opposition Conservative Party, may be viewed as something of a divisive figure in British politics, but her robust views and "anti-woke" values proved vital in her successful campaign to replace former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak as the party’s leader.

She defeated former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, her last remaining rival for the leadership, by securing 56% of their vote. Her victory in the four-month-long campaign to find a new Conservative leader, which began when Sunak resigned from the post in the wake of the Tories' disastrous defeat to Labour in July’s general election, means that she becomes the first black woman to lead a major UK political party.

Under previous Conservative leaders, Badenoch has served in a host of cabinet positions and has not shied away from expressing her strong views on free markets and free speech. She has often courted controversy with her outspoken comments and is regarded as a fierce critic of the Left.

She has taken heat during the campaign for her criticisms of welfare payments for working mothers and government moves to boost wages for low-paid employees. She claims her understanding of the issues affecting working-class voters stems from her time working at McDonald’s as a teenager.

But while Badenoch has made history by becoming the first black woman to lead a British political party, she insists she is no fan of identity politics and has said publicly that the colour of her skin should be of no more importance than her eye or hair colour as she gets to work on the formidable task of restoring her party's battered fortunes.

The former business secretary in Sunak’s government has been unsparing in her analysis of what went wrong for the Conservatives at the last general election, when they suffered their worst defeat since 1832, losing 250 seats. Her main criticism of previous Tory leaders, from David Cameron to Sunak, is that they "talked Right, but governed Left".

A key argument in her campaign to become the party’s next leader was that the Conservatives needed to "stop acting like Labour" to win back power. It is a pledge she put at the heart of her Tory leadership campaign, which focused on changing the underlying mindset of the British state.

Reuters
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch speaks during Prime Minister's Questions at the House of Commons in London, Britain November 6, 2024.

Early life and career

Born Olukemi Adegoke to Nigerian parents in the London suburb of Wimbledon in 1980, she was one of three children. Her father worked as a GP and her mother was a physiology professor, and she spent her early life in Lagos, Nigeria, before moving to the United States, where her mother lectured.

The family returned to live in the UK when she was aged 16, and she studied for her A-levels at a college in south London before enrolling in Sussex University to complete a degree in computer engineering. After graduation, she worked in IT while also gaining a second degree in law. She then moved into finance, becoming an associate director of private bank Coutts. Later, she worked as the digital director of the influential Conservative-supporting magazine The Spectator in a non-editorial role.

Badenoch joined the Conservative Party in 2005, aged 25, and unsuccessfully ran for Parliament in 2010 and the London Assembly in 2012, the year she married her husband, Hamish Badenoch. When two members of the London Assembly, the body responsible for running the British capital, including Suella Braverman, were elected MPs in 2015, she took a vacant Assembly seat.

She backed Brexit in the 2016 referendum before achieving her ambition of becoming an MP a year later for the safe Conservative seat of Saffron Walden in Essex. She saw off some bigger names when running to be Conservative leader in 2022 before she was knocked out in the penultimate round of voting by MPs.

Badenoch had spent three years in junior government roles when, in 2022, she joined the rapid ministerial exodus that brought down then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

To the surprise of many of her colleagues, Badenoch joined the contest to succeed Johnson despite never having been in the cabinet. What began as a longshot campaign, with the support mostly of loyal friends who also entered Parliament in 2017, quickly gained momentum, especially after she received the backing of Michael Gove, an influential figure in Conservative politics.

Badenoch wants Conservatives to take their time working out a fresh approach—one that requires a return to the party's core values

Badenoch ultimately came fourth in the contest, receiving the backing of 59 MPs. It was during this contest that her direct approach won her a reputation for plain-speaking, leading to her winning a bigger role in the Conservative Party. Before long, Liz Truss—who replaced Johnson as prime minister in 2022—had given her a Cabinet appointment, making her international trade secretary. Rishi Sunak retained her in post, while also giving her responsibility for the business, women and equalities portfolios.

A fierce critic of the Left

Since then, Badenoch's parliamentary career has been characterised by her straightforwardness and willingness to engage in controversial issues. As a junior equalities minister under Johnson, for example, she provoked left-wing campaigners by challenging the notion that there was endemic institutional racism in the UK.

Speaking in an interview with London's LBC network, she revealed that, during the years she has spent living in the UK,  she had only ever experienced prejudice at the hands of left-wingers. She has also paid tribute to the opportunities the British political system offers to people from immigrant backgrounds, such as herself.

"I came to this country aged 16, and now I am standing for prime minister. Isn't that amazing?" she declared recently.

"I was born in this country but didn't grow up here. I don't understand why people want to ignore all of the good things and only focus on the bad things and use the bad things to tell the story," she added. She calls herself a gender-critical feminist and has been an outspoken opponent of moves to allow self-certification of transgender identity.

As the cabinet minister in charge of women and equalities, she spearheaded the UK government's attempts to block Scotland's devolved government's efforts to pass a Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

Responding to a highly critical report into gender identity services provided by the UK's state-run National Health Service, Badenoch warned that the unit had been "hijacked by ideologues" while critics of the policy of allowing teenagers to change their sex were "gagged", resulting in children being harmed. 

During her leadership campaign, Badenoch has spoken of Conservatism being "in crisis"—under attack from a new "progressive ideology" involving "identity politics" (politics based on a particular identity such as race, religion or gender), constant state intervention, and "the idea that bureaucrats make better decisions than individuals" or elected politicians.

Despite the Tories being in office for 14 years, she argues that increases in government regulations and public spending have crippled economic growth and polarised the country. She rejected the call made by Jenrick, her rival for the leadership that the Conservatives should decide on their future political approach immediately after the contest had ended.

Badenoch has instead forcefully argued that, so far as the nation's governance is concerned, the UK's "system is broken" and requires a complete reset. Rather than rushing to devise a new set of policies, Badenoch wants the Conservative Party to take its time working out a fresh approach—one that requires Conservative activists to return to the party's core values, an approach she believes will help frame new policies.

Now that Badenoch has been elected as the Conservative Party's new leader, she can do just that.

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