The 2024 Tory leadership contest has been the biggest non-event in recent British politics. This is despite silver spoon MPs like Kemi Badenoch being so desperate for attention that they make ridiculous claims like ‘working at McDonald’s made me working class‘. On Sunday 29 September as the Conservative conference started, Badenoch once again did everything she could to attract attention, and fair play to her, she was all anyone could talk about for five minutes:
"Of course not all cultures are equally valid"
Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch says "cultures that believe in child marriage, or that women don't have equal rights" are not in line with "Western principles" #BBCLauraK https://t.co/efV6wgVKgw pic.twitter.com/xOGLlyXc0M
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 29, 2024
Playing the Kemi Badenoch hits
Kemi Badenoch is attempting to sell herself as the anti-Islam candidate. As most Tory MPs are anti-Islam, she’s going to extreme lengths to stand out:
Badenoch generalises about Muslim immigrants & then tries to pretend it's just about "Islamists"
For her
1. There are good Muslims who love Israel and bad Muslims who hate Israel
2. She has Muslim friends like these good MuslimsVery dangerous https://t.co/HuvoPLgP3M
— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) September 29, 2024
Others have pointed out that Badenoch’s path to power is well trodden at this point:
Friendly reminder: Kemi Badenoch's politics is best understood in 14 words:
"No Black person ever went broke telling white racists what they want to hear".
Everything makes sense once you understand that she is merely a Ventriloquist's dummy for supremacists. Dangerous.
— Nels Abbey (@nelsabbey) September 29, 2024
In fairness, Badenoch is much more than a Black person who seeks to uphold white supremacy; she’s also a woman who seeks to uphold patriarchal corporate interests. As reported by PA and shared by other outlets, Badenoch said:
Maternity pay is “excessive” and people should exercise “more personal responsibility”
Post cost-of-living crisis, few Britons could afford to have children without maternity leave – the fact that Badenoch doesn’t understand this suggests she spends little time with anyone besides her wealthy donors. She is, after all, one of few politicians to defend MPs accepting ‘freebies’.
Badenoch also suggested ‘Britons may change their mind on free access to healthcare‘. Has she met a British person? Because all the ones I meet are complaining about rising food costs, not free GP visits.
Badenoch also tried to suggest that the real problem with migrants is that they’re not sufficiently supportive of Israel’s ongoing genocide / terror campaign:
Kemi Badenoch: shameless hate-monger.
This is not a fringe nutter, this is a former Cabinet Minister campaigning to become the Leader of the Opposition.
What a sewer they force us to live in. pic.twitter.com/WTRHjhBn9T
— David Andress (@ProfDaveAndress) September 29, 2024
Kemi Badenoch says its Muslim extremists who buy into 'political Islam' who don't like Israel.
Maybe people just don't like apartheid and genocide? pic.twitter.com/eluozqOpH5
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) September 29, 2024
People are also highlighting her latest smug-fest in the Telegraph:
This statement from Badenoch is very very ugly….
It should serve as a warning to the Tory party, but it will probably be a rallying cry.
If this is what you choose, you choose viciousness, racism, division, anger and, ultimately, failure. pic.twitter.com/5oz6j9216H— sarah murphy (@13sarahmurphy) September 29, 2024
To be fair, given that the UK and America are full-throatedly supporting ethnic cleansing and genocide, you probably could argue that we’re worse than… oh no, wait, she doesn’t mean it that way. She means that some countries are good because we have lots of missiles, and other countries are bad because we need somewhere to fire our missiles at.
Labour MP and doctor Rosena Allin-Khan described Badenoch’s Sunday tour as a “horror show”:
Kemi Badenoch’s performance on Sunday Political TV this morning was a horror show. There should be no place for such hatred of minority groups in any political party.
— Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (@DrRosena) September 29, 2024
As others have pointed out, though, the Labour Party isn’t really opposing Badenoch’s rhetoric:
Kemi Badenoch is leaning into far right rhetoric largely because the Labour government have already occupied the traditional right wing space.
This is the disastrous combination of a two party system & a Prime Minister lacking in principle and values.
1/2#bbclaurak
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) September 29, 2024
Twitterfied
Let us be clear, we’re not suggesting that Kemi Badenoch doesn’t have dangerous and disgusting political positions. The reason we don’t take her seriously is that you can smell the desperation coming off her.
While you could argue that all Tory MPs are desperate for attention, they at least see it as a road to power rather than a path to more attention. Badenoch is instead part of a new breed of Tories who see politics as a game of owning random strangers on Twitter.com:
Tory Leadership Hopeful Kemi Badenoch Declares She Is A 'Huge Fan' Of Elon Musk https://t.co/jjeHlRpebL
— HuffPost UK (@HuffPostUK) September 26, 2024
In other words, she’s a chronically online weirdo whose only experience of normal people was the five minutes she spent flipping Big Macs.
Featured image via the BBC
