The self-styled culture wars poster girl with ‘zero tolerance of bull****’: How Kemi Badenoch’s proud Nigerian roots have seen her rise from McDonald’s worker to City banker to Cabinet minister who is now waging war on woke
Kemi Badenoch has continued her ‘war on woke’ at the Tory conference this week as the Business and Trade Secretary takes the fight to Labour on identity politics.
The mother-of-three delivered a rousing speech to Conservative members in Manchester, as she cemented her place as a ‘darling of the Right’ in the party.
She warned that advocates of identity politics are seeking to ‘re-racialise’ society and claimed Labour want to ‘bend the knee before this altar of intolerance’.
Ms Badenoch, who is of Nigerian heritage, spoke of how she tells her children that Britain is ‘the best country in the world to be black – because it’s a country that sees people, not labels’.
The 43-year-old’s conference speech will revive thoughts among the Tories’ grassroots of Ms Badenoch being a future party leader.
Kemi Badenoch has continued her ‘war on woke ‘ at the Tory conference this week as the Business and Trade Secretary takes the fight to Labour on identity politics
The mother-of-three delivered a rousing speech to Conservative members in Manchester, as she cemented her place as a ‘darling of the Right’ in the party
The 43-year-old’s conference speech will revive thoughts among the Tories ‘ grassroots of Ms Badenoch being a future party leader
She ran for the Tory leadership last summer and took part in an ITV debate alongside other rival contenders Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss
She ran for the Tory leadership last summer following Boris Johnson’s resignation as prime minister and won the backing of Michael Gove.
But she ended up finishing fourth behind Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt.
The surprise nature of Ms Badenoch’s strong leadership campaign saw her land a Cabinet job, as international trade secretary, in Ms Truss’s government.
She has since combined that role with the business brief in Mr Sunak’s administration.
Mr Gove once said of her: ‘She has zero tolerance of bull**** and she doesn’t want to ingratiate. I have rarely seen someone so on top of her brief.’
Her elevation to the top rank of government marked a long journey from her childhood in the US and Nigeria.
She has previously revealed how – despite being part of a middle class family in the west African country – that still meant ‘periods of poverty’ and ‘having no running water or electricity, sometimes taking your own chair to school’.
In her maiden speech as an MP in 2017, she told the House of Commons there was ‘lot that Africa can teach us’.
But she also detailed the experience she had of ‘real poverty’ while growing up in Nigeria.
‘Growing up in Nigeria I saw real poverty—I experienced it, including living without electricity and doing my homework by candlelight, because the state electricity board could not provide power,’ she said in 2017.
‘And fetching water in heavy, rusty buckets from a borehole a mile away, because the nationalised water company could not get water out of the taps.
‘Unlike many colleagues born since 1980, I was unlucky enough to live under socialist policies. It is not something I would wish on anyone, and it is just one of the reasons why I am a Conservative.’
The married mother-of-three, pictured in the kitchen with one of her two daughters in 2017, grew up between Nigeria, the US and the UK and is known for her ‘anti-woke’ views
Ms Badenoch pictured with her husband Hamish and Theresa May. Hamish is an investment banker and a former Tory councillor
Ms Badenoch was born in south-west London after her Nigerian parents came to the UK so her mother could receive medical treatment. Pictured, Kemi Badenoch (second from left) with (l-r) her brother, Fola, Kemi, her sister Lola and mother, Feyi
Ms Badenoch won the Saffron Walden constituency for the Tories at the 2017 general election. She is pictured with her baby in a carrier as she is sworn in as an MP in the House of Commons
Ms Badenoch was part of Rishi Sunak’s ministerial team at the Treasury when the now-PM was Chancellor
Ms Badenoch was born in Wimbledon, south west London, but moved to Lagos as a very young baby before returning to Britain again at the age of 16.
She worked in McDonald’s while putting herself through college in south London while living with family friends.
‘I had a roof over my head, but I needed to earn to live,’ she told The Times last year.
‘There’s a dignity that you just get from working and earning your own money.’
She later studied engineering at Sussex University and has spoken of once being once the only woman on a building site with 300 men.
Ms Badenoch’s pre-politics career also included a law degree from the University of London, as well as stints at Coutts bank and the Spectator magazine as head of digital.
She first ran to be an MP at the 2010 general election but came third behind Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the Dulwich and West Norwood constituency.
A place on the London Assembly later became available for Ms Badenoch in 2015, which she retained at City Hall election a year later.
She then won her seat in the House of Commons when she secured the Saffron Walden constituency at the 2017 general election.
Ms Badenoch is a committed Brexiteer and has been unafraid to take on ‘culture war’ issues.
‘I always lean right instinctively,’ she has previously told the ConservativeHome website.
She currently holds the Women and Equalities brief in Cabinet, alongside her business and trade role.
Earlier this year, Ms Badenoch tasked Britain’s equalities watchdog with looking at whether legislation should be updated to make clear that ‘sex’ refers to ‘biological sex’.
She is married to Hamish Badenoch, an investment banker, and the couple have two daughters and a son.
Ms Badenoch has revealed she is a keen chess and poker player, an avid reader of Terry Pratchett novels and has a love for sci-fi.
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