Kemi Badenoch will save the Tories – and save Britain
She did it. And as she settles into a post previously held by Sir Robert Peel, Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Thatcher, Kemi Badenoch has been burdened with two responsibilities: to save the Conservative Party – the most successful political machine in the history of Western democracy – and to ultimately remove this spiteful and incompetent Labour government, which is proving more radically left-wing than anyone might have feared.
The parallels between Margaret Thatcher and Kemi Badenoch are hard to ignore. A fearless, maverick woman, with a calm, rational, analytic brain, Badenoch is an engineer to Thatcher’s chemist. Thatcher was the Iron Lady, Kemi has balls of steel. And as in 1975, with the election of Mrs T, this is another mic drop from the Conservatives in choosing Britain’s first black woman leader, making a mockery of Labour’s divisive identity politics. The Tories are the true progressives, LOL.
Badenoch, as with Thatcher in 1975, is not the finished article. She has a tendency to speak first and think later, for example with her clumsy remarks about maternity pay or jokingly suggesting the imprisonment of 10% of civil servants (don’t give me ideas). But the appointment of Kemi Badenoch is exciting – she’s box office, she’s a rock star – and in this attention-deficit era, that’s important. She will make headlines. She will make noise. She will make trouble.
And she is Sir Keir Starmer’s worst nightmare; he will look dusty, grey and tired when squaring up to his new opponent at the dispatch box. But her punchy rhetoric and undoubted presence must now be matched with policy. Robert Jenrick’s highly energetic campaign saw a flurry of compelling ideas which can recalibrate this once great party into being conservative again, ideas Kemi must embrace if she is to win, namely: reduce immigration, stop the boats, tackle hated wokery in our public institutions, cut taxes, make the state both smaller and better, and supercharge economic growth. So both Jenrick himself and his bold policy platform must be accommodated in the new regime. He has gone from being her strong opponent – the result was close – to her greatest asset. Jenrick needs a big job.
Ultimately today is a good result for the Conservative Party and for the country. Following Labour’s catastrophic Halloween budget, which has consigned us to five years of low growth, high tax and eye watering debt, I can’t think of a time when we have needed a strong opposition more. The loyal Tory membership – too often treated as an afterthought - have wisely elected someone who is well capable of being just that.
If there is one criticism of Badenoch’s campaign, it was the lack of detail, particularly in comparison to the aforementioned Jenrick who was a walking manifesto. Which means party members have taken an act of faith. But faith is what politics is all about. And you can have faith in someone like Kemi Badenoch, whose experience of socialism growing up in Nigeria has made her a conservative to her core. A profound allergy to leftist ideology inhabits every cell of her body.
She voted to leave in 2016 – unlike her opponent – and sees Brexit as unfinished business. She can tackle illegal immigration without being called racist, she will make mincemeat of Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons – PMQs will be weekly must-see TV – and she will stand up to the worst excesses of woke, as she did when she eviscerated virtue-signalling Doctor Who actor David Tennant, who said he wished she “didn’t exist” and hoped she would “shut up”.
Mercifully, shutting up is not one of Badenoch’s great qualities, which we will discover in the months and years ahead. Some have said she’s too pugnacious, that she could pick a fight with her own reflection. Too right. Here’s someone who will fight for what is right, will fight for common sense and will fight to win. This compelling new leader will take no prisoners and even the formidable Nigel Farage is looking over his shoulder this weekend. The Tories are back. Game on.