A black woman to rescue the Tories

She is Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke, Kemi Badenoch after her husband Hamish Badenoch, 44, a computer engineer and successive holder of three ministerial portfolios in the last years of the ruling Conservative Party. 

The Tories' long crisis - four of the last five prime ministers have been ousted by internal motions - has led to the logical alternation, with Labour's Keir Starmer now occupying 10 Downing Street. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party reached an all-time low in parliamentary representation: 121 seats in the House of Commons, corresponding to 24% of the vote. Another record was set, with the party's membership plummeting to 132,000 members, after 40,000 decided to leave the party. 

It was in these conditions that Kemi Badenoch, born in Wimbledon in 1980, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, took the reins of the party, winning 57% of the membership vote against Robert Jenrick, both of whom were nonetheless on the party's hard-line wing. 

Perhaps it was the pioneering nature of placing a black woman at the helm of a major political party, but the fact is that almost the entire British political class gave her a warm welcome, even if the exquisitely gloved knives, so common in UK politics, were still in evidence. 

And now, let's get down to business: the programme with which Ms Badenoch will try to regain primacy, and therefore power, for the Tories. 

First of all, there is the question of Brexit. She does not question it, i.e. she has no intention of calling a new referendum that would perhaps rectify the country's traumatic exit from the European Union. There remains, however, a major sticking point, namely the continued primacy of the European Court of Justice in settling disputes over immigration, the most serious problem in the eyes of the British, along with the economy. Unlike the most radical members of her party, who advocate a break with Strasbourg now in order to fully and sovereignly resolve these issues, Kemi Badenoch prefers to wait and see before taking a decision that could be seriously irreversible. 

But where the new Conservative leader has placed most emphasis is on confronting the so-called ‘woke’ culture, the banner of the left, which they perceive as an imposition of artificial and forced ideas and elements. 

In the British case, in line with this trend in the United States, a great deal of social engineering is considered to be underway, such as, for example, through series and films where the inclusion of black and LGBTI characters is forced, even embodying kings and nobles of the Kingdom. The latest demonstration is taking place these days, on the occasion of the rugby competitions of the national teams. The British far left wants to impose a ban on the traditional ‘hakas’ of the New Zealanders, but also on the traditional anthem ‘Swing Low, sweet chariot’, which English fans sing at all their matches in addition to ‘God Save the King’. And, of course, Badenoch is firmly opposed to the brutal ‘cancellation culture’, the destruction of public figures whose professional and artistic careers collapse as they lose contracts and livelihoods after having been at the centre of controversies against the tenets and standard-bearers of ‘Wokism’. There is J.K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, to prove it. 

On the other hand, while the leaders of the main parties were congratulating the new Conservative leader, some of her squires were already taking it upon themselves to mark their differences. Thus, Labour's Ellie Reeves pointed out that ‘the Conservative campaign showed that they had learned nothing since the British people overwhelmingly rejected them last July’. 

Richard Tice of the Reform Party said that ‘Badenoch is yet another in a long line of Tories who say one thing and do another’, before also pointing out that the new leader was part of the governments that brought the country down. 

For the moment, Kemi Badenoch is preparing to draw up the list of members of her ‘Shadow Cabinet’, the Cabinet of ministers that should replace the current Labour government if it wins the next election. Barring major shocks, there are four years left for them, in which Badenoch will have to prove that she and her party could do better than Keith Starmer and his.