Kemi Badenoch, who previously said she no longer identifies as Nigerian, recently opened up about the racism that she has had to endure after she was elected as the Conservative Party’s first Black female leader.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Badenoch, 45, expressed her surprise at the level of racist attacks that were coming her way after she assumed the Conservative Party’s top leadership position, The Guardian reported. Badenoch touched on the racism being meted out to her after she said Britain was “the best place in the world to be black.”
“There’s a certain cadre of people who clearly can’t cope with the fact that I won this and I’m doing it,” Badenoch said in the interview.
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“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?’”
Badenoch also reflected on the social media attacks, saying that 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.’”
READ ALSO: Kemi Badenoch doubles down on her comments about Nigeria despite backlash
The 45-year-old British politician, whose maiden name is Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke, was born in the United Kingdom but spent much of her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria. She returned to the United Kingdom at the age of 16. Badenoch has occasionally voiced her opposition to critical race theory and campaigners against 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. 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,” she told The Sunday Times.
“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.”
Badenoch is scheduled to give her maiden speech as the Conservative leader at the party’s upcoming conference. Her shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, also reportedly has his eyes on her leadership seat, The Guardian reported.
“There will always be people who are sore losers, our candidate didn’t win, and so on, 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.
Badenoch, however, stated that she felt that “even Rob himself finds it distressing, but it’s just something that we deal with.”
