Badenoch’s identity blue

 Meursault in Albert Camus’ 1942 novel, ‘The Outsider’, is an anti-hero who lives in acute anomie towards his socio-cultural milieu. He is supremely detached at the death of his mother, as indicated in the famous opening lines of the novel’s first-person narration: “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.” He intensifies his apathy at the mother’s funeral where he sits through the vigil without showing any outward sign of distress, unlike copious expressions of grief by community members all around him. Meursault’s detachment continues through all of his relationships, both platonic and romantic, and provides a reference point for his sentencing to death by guillotine when tried for his inadvertent killing of a friend’s assailant named ‘the Arab’ in the novel.

Newly-elected leader of opposition Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, Kemi Badenoch, is like Camus’ anti-hero Nigeria where she has her ancestral roots, but towards which she exhibits acute anomie. Only that her detachment isn’t existential like Meursault’s because she harbors an inversely intense affectation for her adopted country, the UK. But give it to her: she’s made good for herself in British politics. She is the first Black woman to lead a major political party in that country and, at 44 years of age, she is only an election away from the possibility of becoming the prime minister. She surmounted historical barriers of sexism and racial bias that she ironically won’t acknowledge to attain that height, and she represents the right wing of the right-of-the-centre Tory party. She has indeed come a long way, only that some things don’t change no matter what. Hence, she remains a leading British politician with undeniable African roots.

Badenoch was elected on 2nd November to replace former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who stepped down from the party helm upon leading Tories to their worst defeat in modern history in elections last July that produced Keir Starmer of the Labour Party as prime minister. She emerged the new Conservative Party leader by winning 57 percent of members’ votes to defeat fellow right-wing candidate and former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick. But she attained that feat, many would argue, by not just repudiating her nativity but also actively denigrating it. 

A strong advocate of the British system as merit-based, Badenoch once said she preferred not to focus on her race and would like the colour of her skin to be of no more significance than the colour of her hair or eyes. At the Conservative Party conference in October 2023, she said she often told her children that Britain is the “best country in the world to be Black because the country sees people, not labels.” She opposes teaching in UK schools of critical race theory – an academic concept based on the premise that racial bias is ingrained in Western civilisation.

The circumstance of Badenoch’s early years underpinned her identity crisis. Born Olukemi Adegoke in London in 1980 to well-to-do Nigerian parents (a doctor and an academic), she had her childhood and early education in Nigeria and at age 16 returned to the UK amidst harsh economic conditions that apparently informed her hubristic narrative of this country. “I grew up somewhere where the lights didn’t come on, where we ran out of fuel frequently despite being an oil-producing country,” she told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recently. “I don’t take what we have in this country for granted. I meet a lot of people who assume that things are good here because they are and always will be. They don’t realise just how much work and sacrifice was required in order to get that,” she added. 

“Badenoch plies her career in British politics on two major planks: running the gauntlet as modern-day defender of the colonial empire and denigrating all links that detract from her Britishness”

In 2012, the software engineer-turned politician married a banker, Hamish Badenoch, with whom she has three children. She is no newcomer to commanding heights of British politics, having held a series of government positions in the 2019-2022 administration of Prime Minister Boris Johnson before joining a mass exodus of ministers in July 2022 over ethics scandals that forced the premier to resign. Badenoch ran to succeed Johnson and failed, but her profile was boosted in the process. She got appointed as trade secretary under the administration of Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose 49-day tenure ranked among the shortest in UK premiership; and she served as business secretary under Sunak’s administration. The purge of Tories from the House of Commons in the July poll that saw Labour Party winning a huge majority and Conservatives culled to 121 lawmakers in the 650-seat parliament spared Badenoch, who held onto her seat as MP for North West Essex. Her political career that began with being elected to the London Assembly in 2015  has seen her retain her membership of the Commons since 2017.

But Badenoch plies her career in British politics on two major planks: running the gauntlet as modern-day defender of the colonial empire and denigrating all links that detract from her Britishness, including her ancestral roots. She once argued it is fallacious for developing countries to always blame their underdevelopment on British colonialism. “There are many countries that want to use guilt to try and exploit the UK: they ask for reparation. I saw it as a trade minister. It is not a culture war,” she said, adding: “We need to make sure we put this country first… There are many things the British empire got wrong, but there are many amazing things the British empire also did. We need to be honest about it and stop pretending that it was all bad. The British empire ended slavery, the Atlantic slave trade. We need to talk about that more.”

Badenoch dismissed demands by formerly colonised countries for reparations from colonial powers as a “scam” because it would be wrong, in her view, to attribute the UK’s wealth and economic success to its colonial history or racial privilege. Rather, she argued, it was “the Glorious Revolution of 1688,” leading to the development of UK’s political system, that should be credited for providing the economic certainty that paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. Speaking at an international conference in London last April, she said: “It matters, because if people genuinely believe that the UK only grew and developed into an advanced economy because of exploitation and oppression, then the solutions they will devise will make our growth and productivity problem even worse. It matters in other countries too, because if developing nations do not understand how the West became rich, they cannot follow in its footsteps. And it matters when, as your trade secretary, I go to the World Trade Organisation conference negotiating on the UK’s behalf, and some of my counterparts spend the entire time in meetings talking about colonialism, blame the West for their economic difficulties and make demands that would make all of us – not just in this country, but around the world – poorer.”

Her nationalist hubris is such that she is perceived as loving the colonial empire more than the empire trustees. Following her victory in the party leadership race, British media cited Conservative shadow culture secretary, Julia Lopez, saying Badenoch would likely be “deeply sceptical” of dropping the word “empire” from British honours. The Mail on Sunday had earlier reported that royal officials were considering offering those recognised with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) the option of receiving an Order of British Excellence instead. Another option, the Order of Elizabeth, was also proposed in the change that would have to be signed off on by the government. Asked by Sky News what the newly-elected Conservative leader would think, Lopez said she thinks Badenoch would be against it. “My gut feeling is that she would be deeply sceptical towards that. Because there’s an implication that the empire is something that is a source of shame. And I don't think that she’s ever thought that it is,” Lopez told the programme anchor.

Now, we know that Badenoch pointedly spurned overtures to identify with her ancestral roots. Chairperson of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, recently said on a Channels Television programme that she ignored overtures made to her, adding: “We don’t force people to accept to be Nigerian.” But neither is the anti-racism community in Britain excited by Badenoch’s feat. They argue that she’s a  tool in the hands of racist Britain to gaslight their concerns by conveying racism without having to deal with the baggage of being labelled racist, since the rhetoric has been outsourced to a Black person.

Well, Lady Badenoch is riding high in British politics and having fun. Lucky her! But she should be wary of being on the wrong side of history, because there is no alchemy of circumstance that can change the identity she seems keen to wish away.