From Sunak to Badenoch

The face of modern Britain keeps changing. Last time, the Tory prime minister of Great Britain had an Indian face. Now, the Tory party leader has a Nigerian face. Kemi Badenoch, 44, is the new leader of the Conservative Party, which Rishi Sunak led to its worst defeat in British parliamentary history. A spectacular blow by a descendant of a former colony on Winston Churchill’s party.

- ANITA PRATAP

Born in London to Nigerian parents, Badenoch rose from obscurity to become a combative believer in conservative values: anti-immigration, anti-woke, pro-family, lower taxes, and small state. Conservatives advocate “small” governments that don’t regulate—until they want governments to become big and bail out businesses too big to fail. She was business secretary in Sunak’s government. Badenoch says Britain “is not a dormitory for migrants to come here and make money”. In his unauthorised biography of Badenoch, author Michael Ashcroft says she became “radicalised” into rightwing politics as a reaction to English university students whom she described as “spoiled, entitled, privileged, metropolitan elites-in-training”. Some call her the “saviour of conservatism”.