” Kemi Badenoch is not only bad at PMQs; she is bad at ‘British Politics’. She has a sketchy knowledge of British culture and political history and she is clearly out of her depth – but not because she is a black British woman of African descent. Despite Badenoch’s palpably false plummy upper/middle class English accent, she is a cultural outsider. She was not raised in a British/English upper middle-class family – she was brought up in Nigeria by Nigerian parents. Denigrating Nigeria has become Badenoch’s main political weapon of choice; her politics are about advocating for a tougher British immigration policy that would see many Africans deported from the UK or prevented from seeking asylum in Britain. Whether she likes it or not, Badenoch is a Nigerian woman from the roots of her Afro hair to the soles of her African feet. She lacks a nuanced cultural understanding of what it means to be British or English. England is a multicultural country but nonetheless it is England – when I think of the connotation of Englishness/Britishness, I think of everything that Badenoch isn’t – Badenoch’s superficial Britishness means she is culturally out of her depth because she is the embodiment of her Nigerian culture and upbringing. But right now – Badenoch is busy biting the hand that fed, raised and nurtured her. Like me, Badenoch is British only on paper. Black Africans like us, will always be Africans no matter how long we cohabit with the Europeans. We are raised on African soil, fed African food, breastfed African cultural do's and don'ts from birth – and to our detriment, encouraged to aspire to 'western values' and look down upon our own continent. Badenoch epitomises black African ‘Eurocentric conservatism.’
She is a typical middle class African woman – a flawless product of the British Empire – brainwashed to self-loathe her Africanness and heritage. Badenoch’s speech on immigration on November 27, 2024 titled, “Immigration is too high”. “Migration affects all of our lives in different ways. It certainly affected mine, and that is why I am happy to speak about it without fear,” she claims. Somewhere in the middle of this speech, ironically, Badenoch starts to rant about the failed Rwanda scheme. She describes her own British citizenship as ‘Willy Wonka’s golden ticket’ whilst claiming, “loopholes are wilfully exploited by opportunists,” to dismiss genuine concerns for the safety of asylum seekers being shipped off to Rwanda. Her self-professed British patriotism is mind boggling and disturbing to say the least. She has no ancestral blood ties to England. I have found no research showing that her parents ever settled in the UK and made economic contributions to the country. If there is, then, I stand to be corrected.
