Kemi Badenoch: A Right-Wing Politician and the First Black Woman to Lead UK Conservatives

The UK Conservative Party election has ended with the victory of the right-wing candidate Kemi Badenoch, to succeed former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who stepped down after losing the election last July.

Badenoch won 57% of the vote, beating her rival, former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick.

She is known for her support for Britain's exit from the EU (Brexit) and considers Conservative PM Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher as her favorite heroes.

Badenoch has called for the re-imposition of conservative values, accusing her party of becoming increasingly liberal on social issues such as gender identity.

Badenoch has sometimes been criticized for her outspoken approach, with opponents criticizing her comments on topics such as freedom and immigration.

A Right-Wing Leader

In a historic shift in British politics, Kemi Badenoch has won a landslide victory in the Conservative Party leadership race, making her the first black woman of African descent to lead a major political party in the UK and the fourth woman to hold the position after Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Liz Truss.

Badenoch, the MP for North West Essex, became the fifth Conservative leader since mid-2016, after 53,806 party members voted for her, beating right-wing MP Robert Jenrick, who won 41,388 votes.

In her victory speech, Badenoch acknowledged that her party had a huge job ahead of it, and needed to be honest about where it had made mistakes.

Badenoch has pledged to make sweeping changes to the party after its election defeat by Labour this summer.

“Our first responsibility as an opposition will be to hold this Labour government to account, and the second is to prepare the government for the next few years,” she said.

She is likely to back policies that reduce the role of government and challenge what she says is left-wing establishment thinking.

Badenoch launched her leadership campaign under the slogan Renewal 2030, targeting the next election as a way to return the Conservatives to power.

She now faces the daunting task of reuniting a party that has been severely eroded in the House of Commons, is still plagued by divisions and was recently ousted after 14 years in power.

She must plan a strategy to restore public confidence while reducing support for the far-right Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage, who was a key Brexit supporter.

After her right-wing campaign, she also faces the prospect of future difficulties from Conservative MPs, who include many centrists.

Badenoch has been labelled a threat to democracy after comments she made about four newly elected Muslim independent MPs and Jeremy Corbyn. 

“I was far more worried about the five new MPs elected on the back of sectarian Islamist politics more concerning than the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform party,” Badenoch said.

When Badenoch was accused of being Islamophobic, she published an article in The Telegraph in which she said she was referring to those who were culturally and ethically different from British society, political Islamist groups, and those who hated “Israel”.

Political Efficiency

Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke, known as Kemi Badenoch, was born on January 2, 1980 in Wimbledon, central London, to Nigerian parents.

Kemi moved around a lot during her childhood between the UK, Nigeria and the United States, due to her mother's job, before her father sent her to live in London when she was only 16 years old.

After returning to London, Badenoch completed her studies at Phoenix College, before enrolling in the University of Sussex to study computer systems engineering, graduating in 2003, and later obtaining a law degree.

Badenoch began her career as a software engineer at Logica, then as a systems analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland, then as an assistant manager at Coutts Private Bank, before moving to work as the digital director of The Spectator magazine.

She entered politics in 2005, joining the Conservative Party, with a desire to fix problems that she says could not be better served than politics.

She quickly climbed the ladder, taking a seat in the London Assembly in 2015 and becoming a member of the House of Commons in 2017.

She became deputy leader of the Conservative Party in 2018.

In 2019, Kemi was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

She then served as Equalities Minister in Johnson's government in 2021, and as Secretary of State for International Trade in both Truss and Sunak's governments in 2022.

In July 2022, Badenoch ran for the British Prime Minister to succeed the resigned PM Johnson.

She held onto her seat in Parliament in July’s general election, which saw the Labour Party win a huge majority.

Controversial Statements

During her previous positions, Kemi Badenoch used to make inflammatory statements that sparked controversy and criticism.

Badenoch spoke to UNICEF about family life in the UK, saying that it is among the worst in Europe by far, and that fathers do not receive the attention they should receive in the law.

She also pointed out that the statutory maternity pay imposed on small businesses is excessive.

Badenoch's comments cost her the support of women, according to DW, before she later clarified her statements and tried to improve her image, saying that she believed in maternity pay.

She also sparked further anger when she joked at a Conservative Party conference that up to 10% of Britain's half a million civil servants were so bad that they should be jailed.

The statement led to an attack from trade unions on Badenoch, with one union leader calling on her to withdraw her comments, but she said it was just a joke that did not warrant anger.

Kemi's talk about immigration sparked widespread controversy, despite her Nigerian origins, as she said: “We must never allow our tolerance to be taken advantage of by those who arrive, only to undermine the very values that have allowed us to succeed.”

“Not all cultures are equally valid when it comes to immigration,” she said.

Badenoch's supporters believe her tough style is what the Conservatives need right now to bounce back from their worst-ever election defeat in July, but the battles the party may have to wage over its new leader are unnecessary.

Critics say Badenoch has a habit of clashing with colleagues and civil servants, and is prone to talking rashly and picking unnecessary fights.

Kemi's election campaign saw such things, when she was roundly criticised for saying that not all cultures were equal.

Speaking to the BBC about the criticism, Badenoch said she was just stating her opinion in her own way, and that she was telling the truth.

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed her victory, saying: “The first black leader of a Westminster party is a proud moment for our country.”

But Badenoch herself has publicly said she prefers not to focus on her race.

Asked at the Conservative Party conference earlier this year how it would feel to become the first black woman leader of the party, she said: “I am somebody who wants the colour of our skin to be no more significant than the colour of our hair or the colour of our eyes.”

Vaughan Gething became the first black leader of the Welsh Labour Party earlier this year, but resigned after just four months as the first minister of Wales after a wave of ministerial resignations in protest over his leadership.

Sunak, who is of Indian descent, became Britain's first prime minister of colour in October 2022 after winning a race to lead the Conservatives that year.