What has Kemi Badenoch ever done for Black Britons?

The Tory leader’s first Christmas message is an encomium to the power of community – but, says Ava Vidal, there’s one that she seems to have forgotten about: her own

Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch – to give her her full name, which translates from Yoruba as “God has favoured me”, although mere mortals know her as Kemi – has given her first Christmas message to the nation as leader of the Conservative Party. Praise be.

In it, she takes the opportunity to say thank you “to everyone – not just in the Conservative Party or in my constituency, but across the country – for all that you have been doing in your communities, supporting each other and helping to keep all our towns, villages and places going”.

She goes on to explain that her message – “to everyone this Christmas” – also serves as a reminder to “all of the people who might be in your community who need your support. Let’s not forget them.”

It’s enough to warm the cockles during an unseasonably mild Christmas. Except there’s definitely one community that I believe Badenoch has forgotten about – and it’s her own.

Because what has Kemi Badenoch ever done for Black Britons? Yes, she’s the first Black female leader of any major political party in the UK, and as such it’s hard to deny her impact.

It’s always a sign that you’ve “made it” when BBC Radio 4’s Dead Ringers rushes out an impersonation – but, with the greatest of respect, its Kemi Badenoch needs a little work. She stretches out the ‘o’ in her words. Think of the word “moan” and elongate it. She has a very strong RP accent, the kind that many Black and Asian middle classes have – one they take great pride in because it means they “speak English properly”.

I have spent hours listening to Badenoch in the vain hope that I might get some work as an impersonator. That, for me, would be the only upside to her leading the Tories.

Having been repeatedly told that Badenoch’s elevation was something I, as a Black woman, ought to celebrate, I am not feeling it at all. Nothing she has done since taking over as party leader 52 days ago has changed my mind about her.

Badenoch’s position on race and racism has long been a frustration to many Black people. For years, she has maintained that Great Britain is the best place in the world to be Black. At last year’s Conservative Party conference, she explained that it’s practically a mantra that she drills into her children.

And while admittedly there are worse places in the world, many feel Badenoch undermines the very real issues that Black people face in the UK. Professor Kehinde Andrews, the UK’s first professor of Black studies, described her as “the Black face of white supremacy”. Dawn Butler, the Labour MP for Brent East, was criticised for sharing a post that said Badenoch’s win had been a “victory for racism”.

In my experience, there are no people more annoying than Black people raised abroad in majority Black countries that pontificate on racism in the UK. Badenoch, who was born in the UK to Nigerian parents but mostly raised in Lagos, sees British Blackness as victimhood.

British racism especially is pernicious, often indirect, and insidious – and you need the lived experience you start gathering from birth to be able to navigate a way through it.

Through ill-judged comments about the “difference” between Caribbean and African communities in the UK, she has demonstrated a kind of racial illiteracy that is both offensive and dangerous. In an interview with The Times before she became party leader, Badenoch showed herself to be dismissive of Caribbean culture, and keen to drive a wedge through the Black community.

“Until recently, Africans came here from middle class homes to go to university and, if we stayed around, we worked in banks,” she told Janice Turner. “Whereas the Windrush generation came to do working class jobs – driving buses, nursing…”

If that wasn’t divisive enough, she has casually dismissed the colonialism that blighted the country where she grew up as “some people came, did some things and then they left”. Yet the Biafran War is considered one of the most devastating periods in Nigerian history, one in which inter-tribal tensions were encouraged by the British, who supplied weapons and ammunition, leaving over one million children dead.

Badenoch has made headlines for her outspoken comments which have drawn support from certain sections of the Tory Party, who are amused and fascinated in equal measure about how she says the “unsayable”. She has, for instance, called the request for reparations by Caribbean leaders, for the ongoing economic disadvantage caused by the legacy of slavery, “a scam”, and claims they are attempting to “use guilt to exploit the UK”.

Badenoch is Black but in denial about her Blackness in the same way that Margaret Thatcher played on her uniqueness as a woman at the top of British politics. Thatcher was the Iron Lady and the ordinary housewife, juggling an international political career with motherhood, running the country from Downing Street while keeping things shipshape above No 10. But in all her 11 years in office she appointed just one woman to her Cabinet.

Despite what Kemi may think, Black people don’t want to be victims. They want to have their struggles against racism acknowledged but they want the same things in life as everyone else. To get a job, be able to progress in their chosen career and live comfortable lives. Instead of rejecting that racism exists, she ought to be boasting about what she has achieved despite it.

There’s plenty for Black people not to like about Badenoch. Although she has denied that she deliberately seeks confrontation or to engage in so-called “culture wars”, in the so-called “war on woke” some would regard her as the commander-in-chief. She herself rejects the idea of identity politics, yet she is quick to hide behind them when it suits her. When Doctor Who actor David Tennant said he wished she would “just shut up” in respect of gender issues, she labelled 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 by calling publicly for my existence to end”. Hyperbolic much?

Her appetite for chaos (The Guardian coined the nickname “Kemikaze”) combined with her permanent sense of humour failure – it has long been claimed she could start a fight in an empty room – has given credence to the “angry Black woman” trope. But increasingly she finds herself victim of it.

Now, on top of her vaunting self-regard, comes her dismal performance. Six weeks after taking over as leader, her party’s poll rating is in danger of being overtaken by Reform UK. Within the month, Nigel Farage’s party is confident it will have more members than Tories. According to the latest YouGov data, more than half of Britons (53 per cent) do not think Badenoch looks like a prime minister in waiting, compared to just 13 per cent who think she does.

Rather than ape the worst right-wing excesses, she could do with not being quite so reactionary – however, she has stated that she has no intention of toning down her rhetoric. Soon, she will see that word “assertive” that’s routinely applied to her replaced with “aggressive”.

I believe her speech and actions, which have allowed her to rise to the top of the party, are what could be her downfall. When, after one disappointing election too many, the men in grey suits eventually show her the door, I wonder if she’ll be found crouched in a corner, telling anyone who will listen that it only happened because she is a strong Black woman.