Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has voiced alarm at the scale of racist attacks she has endured since becoming the first Black woman to head the party, despite her past assertion that Britain is “the best place in the world to be Black.”
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Badenoch described a wave of hostility directed at her, both online and from a small number of fellow MPs. She likened the criticism to what she called “Kemi derangement syndrome.”
“There’s a certain cadre of people who clearly can’t cope with the fact that I won this, and I’m doing it,” she said. “The level of personal attacks from anonymous people it’s hysterical. Not even just from MPs. I actually don’t think it’s that many MPs. I think it’s two to three people out of 120. That’s nothing. But online as well. People used to talk about Trump derangement syndrome. I think there’s a Kemi derangement syndrome: ‘How could she possibly have done this?’”
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Badenoch said social media abuse has increasingly taken on an ethno-nationalist tone, with critics questioning her achievements because of her background. “There’s a lot of ethno-nationalism creeping up, lots of stuff about my race and my ethnicity and the tropes around, ‘well, she couldn’t possibly have done this all by herself,’” she added.
Born in Wimbledon and raised in Nigeria before moving back to the UK at 16, Badenoch has at times sought to distance herself from her Nigerian heritage. She told the paper she always weighs other explanations before attributing criticism to racism.
“I always try to think of every possible explanation before I go to race and racism. I think that is a healthy way to run a society,” she said. “I remember when I stood up a few years ago and said Britain is not a racist country,ethnic minorities do very well here, it is white working-class boys who are actually struggling on a lot of metrics—and I got pilloried for that. My view is that there are people out there who will say whatever it is, they will throw whatever kind of mud at you, and they will hope that it sticks.”
The remarks come as Badenoch prepares for her first party conference as leader, amid speculation that shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick may be positioning for a challenge. With the Conservatives languishing at 17% in opinion polls, she dismissed such rumours as “wishful thinking” and “sour grapes.”
“When I hear those things, I can tell those people are not focused on the country at all. Many of those people having those conversations think this is a game. But the lives of people in this country aren’t a game,” she said.