British Politics

They love non-white people who tell them they are right to be white supremacists.

Same as the hardline unionists loved Conor Cruise-O’Brien and white racists in America love Thomas Sowell and English racists who are vocal in their hatred of Muslims love the likes of Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

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I believe she is the first black leader of a political party in Westminster.

https://twitter.com/ourfavonlinedoc/status/1852676397434535990?s=46&t=K27wQ5SlUD1o1nD3wyFPgA

This is very Industry (the HBO kind)

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https://twitter.com/ProfDaveAndress/status/1852680745241784772

Surely not from a Tory

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This is expected from a politician.

The idea that a person of colour should be automatically exempt from criticism because they say the things white supremacists like is one of the most racist imaginable.

Ironically yet completely predictably Kemi Badenoch’s election as Tory leader has been used by white racists to spew out racism against “uppity” black people like Dawn Butler and Nels Abbey who don’t see Kemi Badenoch being Tory leader as a good thing for people of colour.

The message is: if you’re black, don’t be uppity. If you’re not, and if you’re very lucky, “polite” white society (ie. vicious racists pretending not to be racists) might grudgingly accept you. If you’re “uppity”, prepare to be racially vilified.

So here we are. Kemi Badenoch is the leader of the Conservative party. That’s another couple of firsts that the Tories have beaten Labour to. So far, the Conservatives have elected the first Asian leader and prime minister, and the first female Black leader of any major British political party.

But as these firsts started to come quicker and closer together – we now have a brown party leader handing over to a Black one – two things have happened. One, the politics of the party has become more unhinged and its electoral record has tanked. And two, the profile of these mould-breaking new leaders has become more extreme. The two are not unrelated to the success of ethnic minorities in the Tory party. I am sorry to point this out, because there is a sort of ritual now that must be observed when the Tories do well on diversity: you must not speak ill of a person of colour who has been elected to a position of leadership for the first time, and the significance of that moment, above all else, should be respected.

That ritual now has become a sort of farce. Because many things are staring us in the face while we are asked to perform some perfunctory ceremony of celebration. The ritual now even has its own incantation: “putting politics aside” or “whatever you think of their politics”, you must say, we must recognise that this is a good day for British politics and society in general. I’m not clear how you can “put politics aside” when it’s Badenoch’s actual job, and when her record is so appalling. I mean, it’s Kemi Badenoch. And her job is leader of the opposition.

This is the woman who said that “not all cultures are equally valid”, when deciding on who is to be allowed to enter the UK. Who said that autistic people undeservingly receive “better treatment” and economic “privileges and protections”. Who thinks that maternity pay is “excessive”. That online safety regulation is “legislating for hurt feelings” and that net zero commitments are “unilateral economic disarmament”. And who has dedicated much of her career so far to pugnacious culture warring.

And if you were to just take a glance at what her elevation means to the ethnic minority from which she comes, I am afraid that there is not only little to celebrate, but a lot to worry about. Take Badenoch on colonialism (she doesn’t care about it); on Black communities (she thinks no such thing exists, a neat echo of Thatcher’s “no such thing as society”); and on racism (when Black people are in the wrong job, in her experience, they just think their employer is racist).

But you must park whatever you think of that, and acknowledge that this is a good day because it says something about diminishing barriers to the rise of people of colour today. What that obscures is the specific circumstances of that rise, and of which people in particular. It’s not just anyone who gets to the top in British politics, but those who adhere to a particular story – one in which their experience, success and racial identity allow them to undermine the concerns of other ethnic minorities and attack those minorities for not toeing the line in terms of their “integration” or political values. (Badenoch says that “ancestral hostilities” make some immigrants “hate Israel”.) It seems that successful candidates, because of their identity, can do the wider work of Conservatism when it comes to race in a way that their white counterparts are not able to without annihilating the veneer of respectability that distinguishes the Conservatives from the far right.


Kemi Badenoch photographed outdoors wearing a dark blue coat with tied belt; she is walking in bright but wintry sunlight past a stone building with blurred people moving behind her
Who is the new Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch? That depends on your perspective
Read more

And the circumstances are also troubling. Kemi Badenoch, like Rishi Sunak, ran before as party leader and was dismissed out of hand. And like Sunak, she was only considered when the party’s prospects had dwindled. It’s an awkward question and again I am sorry to pose it while we are in the customary grace period of putting politics aside, but does there not seem to be a correlation between electing ethnic minorities as party heads, and a recent deterioration of the party’s performance internally and at the ballot box? The implication is that when the party is not really in serious play, it can afford to experiment with new people who wouldn’t have been quite the right profile in more bountiful times, and see where it goes.

It’s a lot to reckon with, I know, when there is a far simpler moment to land on, a far simpler story of racial success to grasp on to. If you had told me 10 years ago that we would have a brown prime minister and a Black female leader of the Tory party, I would have imagined a far less flat and dispiriting scenario. The Tories’ record on elevating problematic people of colour has accelerated quicker than society’s understanding that people of colour can be problematic too – and that it’s OK to say so. The party’s degrading effect on social cohesion over the past decade is far too clear now for any of us not to realise that this is the way the status quo works. Its very power lies in constantly expanding the profile of people included in the establishment so that they may stabilise it, by diversifying it.

Badenoch has the right to have whatever opinions she wishes, but it is also the right of others to feel excluded by them, and not be scolded for refusing to cheer an appointment that is at best meaningless, and at worst perturbing.

Badenoch’s election is a first that signifies nothing. But it is useful, because it forces us to confront the fact that representation does not happen simply by elevating women or people of colour. True representation requires specific people and specific circumstances that do something other than merely continuing, or indeed entrenching, the way things already are. It’s a curveball for sure. But we can catch it. And catch up.

The May 2026 spread is looking optimistic for Badenoch.

https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/1853832758998528471

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They have so few MPs that everyone is getting a job

Badenoch thinks a “petition” pushed by Elon Musk and “signed” by bots is grounds for an election less than five months after the last one, in a which Labour got 411 seats. :joy: :joy: :joy:

She is an unmerciful cretin.

https://twitter.com/AdamJSchwarz/status/1861748789784072673

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Presumably in light of these facts coming into the public domain Kemi Badenoch will demand Starmer deport her?

*Left: Kemi Badenoch says British citizenship should be “a privilege to be earned” and not an “automatic right” *

Right: A Nigerian TV channel points out that Kemi Badenoch’s mum flew to London to give birth to Kemi, then flew back to Nigeria, where Kemi was raised till the age of 16

How did Kemi Badenoch “earn” her British citizenship when her mum flew over just to give birth, or is that the “automatic right” she wants discontinued for others but is happy to have had for herself?

https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1861893194775961675

Badenoch is a clown but going on about her citizenship and birthplace is pretty distasteful.

I’ve no wish to see her deported, it’s here who wants to deport people like her, but which presumably doesn’t include herself.

I see Kneecap made a tit of her yesterday.

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Id love to see her deported.

She’ll be gone before the next election. Cleverly will be the next leader.

Buoyant question time with farage and Alastair Campbell

The BBC might as well let Farage present it at this stage.

Clickety clickety click.

I’ve stuck on the show about that bridge in Baltimore now.

Had a nap today so will stay up for the nfl

Christmas Party tonight, Dublin tomorrow with brothers, beer goggles.
Be home lunchtime Sunday says Mrs Jones, but deep down she knows. It still won’t be comfortable, even after almost 40 years. Great craic when you’re out out though

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