London, 2 November 2024 – After the disastrous electoral performance last July, the Conservative Party British has a new leader: it is Kemi Badenochwho after being elected by the members therefore succeeds former prime minister Rishi Sunak. Forty-four years old and parliamentarian since 2017 – she is one of the very few conservatives who have managed to make themselves re-elect – will have great challenges ahead until the next polls, scheduled for 2029to which he will present himself as candidate for prime minister.
Kemi Badenoch, new leader of the British Conservative Party: will be the candidate for prime minister in 2029 (EPA/ANDY RAIN)
Multicultural childhoods and careers in IT
Kemi Adegoke (this is her maiden name) was born on 2 January 1980 in Wimbledon, to parents of Nigerian origin: his father Femi is a general practitioner, while his mother Feyi worked as a biology professor. He has a brother, Fola, and a sister, Lola. He spent his childhood on horseback between the United States and Nigeriaonly to return to the UK when the political situation in the African country deteriorates rapidly.
Studies computer systems engineering at the University of Sussex, where he graduated in 2003 and then started a career in IT. But in the meantime he gets another degree, in jurisprudence at Birkbeck, one of London’s universities. She is then employed at Royal Bank of Scotland as a systems analyst. She later became an associate director of the bank Coutts and digital director of the newspaper The Spectator.
E’ married to Hamish BadenochDeutsche Bank employee and former candidate for the British Parliament, with whom he has two children.
To politics
In 2015 it comes elected to the London City Assemblya position he holds until 2020, but has already entered the British parliament in 2017. He made his government debut in the cabinets led by Boris Johnson: holds the positions of undersecretary for Youth and Family (2019-2020), secretary of the Treasury (2020-2021), minister for Equality (2020-2022) and minister for Local Government (2021-2022). When Liz Truss becomes prime minister, in September 2022, Badenoch is appointed secretary for International Trade, being confirmed in the position by the new prime minister Rishi Sunak the following month. Under the latter’s government, she was also entrusted with the ministry for Women and Equality.
Kemi Badenoch (EPA/ANDY RAIN)
What he believes in
Kemi Badenoch defines herself as belonging to the liberal area of the Conservative Party, but the analysts they disagree. For them, the 44-year-old is among the most right-wing politicians of the group. Daughter of Nigerian immigrants, ha denied that the UK is racist; in 2020, during Black History Month, she spoke out against schools that teach that white privilege is a fact. Badenoch argues that the colonialism did also “beautiful things”which should be told like the negative ones. “I know what we were doing before colonialism arrived, there was no concept of rights,” she justified in a series of Whatsapp messages leaked to the media.
In 2019 it is abstained in the vote that would have granted the right to marriage to people gay in Northern Ireland. Yes it is then opposite to the right of trans people to self-define your gender in the workplace. These positions have caused her much criticism, including that of the actor David Tennant during the British LGBT Awards: “Until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch no longer exists – I wish her no harm, I just want her to shut up – and we live in this world, I am honored to receive this recognition.” “I will not be silenced yes one rich, famous and left-wing man who attacks the only black woman in the government by publicly evoking the end of my existence”, the Tory response.
In 2021, Vice made a fuss by claiming to have it available an audio in Badenoch in which the then minister he made fun of weddings between people of same sex and called trans women “men”.
He defined the sexual morality of new generations like “much more puritan” from when she was a teenager, referencing the big Watch out for harassment.
