Kemi Badenoch thanked CCHQ staff after she was elected Leader of the Conservative Party. Kemi seemed thrilled as she thanked CCHQ staff and supporters, saying the campaign was 'a lot of fun' but now wants to 'get to work.'
Never frightened to ruffle feathers, Kemi Badenoch's willingness to say what others may regard as unsayable has made her the darling of the Tory grassroots.
Seen as the scourge of the 'woke', to some Conservatives her direct, shoot-from-the-hip style offers the best antidote to the appeal of Nigel Farage's Reform UK. For her part, Ms Badenoch has denied that she deliberately seeks confrontation or to engage in so-called 'culture wars'.When the Doctor Who actor David Tennant told an LGBT+ awards ceremony he would like to wake up in a world where she 'doesn't exist any more' and that he wished she would 'shut up', Ms Badenoch hit back, vowing she would not be silenced by a 'rich, lefty, white male celebrity' attacking 'the only black woman in government'.
When the country's economy collapsed in the 1990s, her parents took advantage of her British passport to get her out, sending her at the age of 16 to live with a family friend in Morden, south London, to continue her education. Having come from a solidly middle-class background with an assumption she would go on to become a doctor, it came as something of a shock to find herself among working class youngsters of whom little was expected.
'These stupid lefty white kids didn't know what they were talking about,' she told The Times. 'And that instinctively made me think 'these are not my people'.' An ardent Brexiteer, she made an immediate impression, describing the vote to leave the EU as 'the greatest ever vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom' in her maiden speech and securing a place on the executive of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee.
Her rise through the ministerial ranks under Mr Johnson did not stop her joining the tidal wave of resignations, precipitated by the Chris Pincher scandal, which finally forced him out of No 10 in 2022.
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