The Left’s Problem With Kemi Badenoch

(Photograph: Chris McAndrew, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

A phenomenon that is insupportable to the left is a black person who has been successful by his or her own efforts, and not because of positive discrimination or hiring quotas. According to socialists, black people are without exception impoverished, marginalised and oppressed, and therefore in need of rescuing by those self-same socialists. Any black person who refuses to accept his or her perpetual victim status and like any other citizen seeks to contribute to society, is regarded as a traitor, and thereby accorded a range of despicable names such as ‘Uncle Tom’ and ‘coconut’. Lumping all black people into the category of victim while ignoring the rich diversity of their histories and lived experiences, is evidence of how deeply racist the left’s ‘anti-racism’ is.     

Left-wing ideology requires black people to live paradoxically. In Britain’s case, the left affirms that black people living in Britain are as British as any white person and they are right to do so. Yet, the left does not want black people to feel at home. It wants them to feel alienated from British society because, as the left constantly tells them, it is incorrigibly racist. Black people are therefore expected to feel perpetually aggrieved. This is then exploited by the left who present themselves as the only political force able to resolve their apparent grievances. Remember Jeremy Corbyn’s oleaginous declaration that only the Labour Party can ensure ethnic minorities fulfil their potential? At this point we meet another paradox. Although the left professes to be the champion of black people it does not really want their grievances to be solved; for if they were, black people would cease to think they needed a champion, and this would affect the numbers voting Labour. Socialists exploit black people as ruthlessly as any Victorian coloniser ever did.  

It is therefore no surprise that the left cannot get their heads around a person like the Conservative cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch. In their eyes, Badenoch ought to be a self-pitying victim and activist rather than a proud Briton and top-ranking politician. She is of course black and a migrant from Nigeria. As a child, she had to endure a low standard of living: she completed her homework by candlelight and fetched water from a standpipe a mile away because of the inefficiency of the nationalised water company. When she came to the UK, Badenoch had little money and had to work in MacDonald’s to finance her part-time A-Level studies. She also has three children and must cope with the tough balancing act of having a career and being a mother. Yet, rather than seeing this as evidence that she is a victim who needs the likes of Corbyn to unleash her potential, Badenoch has made a resounding success of her life by her own efforts. From flipping burgers and studying through the night, Badenoch went on to graduate with a degree in computer engineering from Sussex University, work for The Spectator in the digital department and complete another degree in law while working full-time. She joined the Conservative Party because she was upset at where her adopted country was going. Furthermore, she became an MP when she won the biggest majority since 1935 in the majority white constituency of Saffron Walden. In fact, she is strongly tipped to succeed Rishi Sunak as the next leader of the Conservatives. She might even end up as Prime Minister. And no one will be shocked just as no one was shocked at Sunak’s accession to the prime ministership, because unlike what the left wants us to believe, Britain is not a racist country.

What Badenoch and others like her such as James Cleverly and Kwasi Kwarteng do is expose as arrant nonsense the left’s view that the narrative of all black lives is one of subjugation. Is Britain free of racism? No, of course not, but the number of racist incidents reported continues to decline (with the sickening exception of anti-Semitism). Is Britain a place where discrimination is illegal? Yes, absolutely. And is Britain a place where ethnic minorities are on an equal footing with the majority white population? Yes, in the sense that average income across all ethnicities is roughly the same, and no, in the sense that children from African, Asian and Chinese heritages are outperforming their white classmates at school.

Britain therefore has much to celebrate because of its black conservative politicians. Badenoch and co are a credit to the nation they love and wish to serve. They are evidence of how sensible immigration can benefit Britain. They are evidence too that when it comes to black people, those on the left who view them as forever helpless are their real oppressors.       

Peter Harris is the author of two books, The Rage Against the Light: Why Christopher Hitchens Was Wrong (2019) and Do You Believe It? A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith (2020).

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