SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
It was an historic election result from a controversial politician who speaks their mind, and we don't mean on the U.S. side of the Atlantic. Kemi Badenoch won the race to lead the U.K.'s Conservative Party and thus became the first Black woman to head a major British political party. Of course, she follows Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, who was prime minister when the party suffered a crushing electoral defeat earlier this year. Inaya Folarin Iman is a British journalist who joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
INAYA FOLARIN IMAN: Thank you for having me.
SIMON: Help us understand Kemi Badenoch and how significant having the top job among British Conservatives is.
IMAN: So this is a hugely significant moment. Kemi Badenoch was born in the U.K., but she describes herself as a first-generation immigrant. And that is because she actually was raised up until her mid-teens in Nigeria. So she didn't necessarily go through the British education system, and she has, you know, an unorthodox background. So whilst her parents were relatively middle- and upper-class in Nigeria, when she came here, she didn't have much money. She lived with family. She did odd jobs, such as working in McDonald's. And she didn't necessarily go to the top private schools that we're used to in the U.K. or even Oxford or Cambridge.
So she is an outsider in terms of her background, but she's not so much an outsider in the sense that she has become a major figure in British public life for a number of years. She came to prominence, particularly in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests as a prominent critic of identity politics. And she challenged the idea that Britain was an institutionally racist society, and that drew her a lot of favor amongst Conservative politicians.
SIMON: How do you think her background shapes her as a politician today?
IMAN: So I think that the fact that she was raised in Nigeria, I think is actually quite an important way that that shaped her, in so far as I think that she has a kind of immigrant optimism, a kind of idealized - in many ways, a good idealized vision of what Britain is. She sees it as a kind of land of opportunity, the home of, you know, democracy and many freedoms.
And in terms of Nigerian culture, there isn't really such a thing as political correctness. My parents are of Nigerian heritage, and they're very frank in the way that they speak. So I think that that kind of brashness, that boldness, that willingness to speak your mind that she was probably raised in in Nigeria has given her an edge in the U.K. in perhaps being able to say the kinds of things that a lot of people are thinking but may not have the confidence to be able to say that publicly.
SIMON: What kind of challenges does she face trying to make the Conservative Party strong again?
IMAN: So she faces a huge challenge, actually. Her and her contender, Robert Jenrick, actually jointly only got less than 100,000 votes. That's the lowest in Conservative history. The party membership has effectively collapsed. And a lot will have to be done in order to rebuild that membership, 'cause that's where the activists are in terms of who's going to be delivering leaflets at election time. And the Conservatives suffered a crushing defeat. So they no longer have the incumbency boost that they might have had under previous Conservative governments. They are now hugely on the back of that.
The cost of living is out of control, and we have a prison crisis. There's a sense that there's an immigration crisis, and a lot of people hold the Conservatives responsible for that. But even more still, the Conservatives have a challenger to the right, which is Nigel Farage's Reform Party, and Robert Jenrick, her contender, really tried to appeal to those Reform voters. But Kemi has not necessarily been as strong in doing so, so she has a very huge challenge on her hands.
SIMON: It strikes me, though, that you're describing somebody who can command attention.
IMAN: Exactly. And I think that that can be Badenoch's strength and, to some extent, her weaknesses, as well. So her strength is that when it comes to some of the thorny issues over the last few years - what many people talk about as the culture wars - she has been firm in her position. She's been quite strong on the - saying that British history is something to be proud of. She's saying that colonialism had some good elements and some bad, whereas some would just say something different to her. And she is outspoken.
Now, that has been her strength, but that has also drawn her a lot of criticism. Some people have said that she's rude. She's too abrasive. She's too aggressive and doesn't really chime with the more reserved British sensibility. But I think we are now in new times. You know, with the election in the U.S., there's almost been a much more normalization of a stronger, brasher version of politics. So I think that, in the end, will be her strength.
SIMON: British journalist and commentator Inaya Folarin Iman, thanks so much for being with us.
IMAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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