New Leader, Same Old Problems For UK’s Conservatives – OpEd

By Mohamed Chebaro

For the world, the UK Conservative Party’s election of a Black female as leader is something to be applauded. She is not the first woman leader of the party, since Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Liz Truss have all preceded her and been in government too. All have left their mark on the country, both positively and negatively, each for their own reasons.

Yet, the election of Kemi Badenoch is not a surprise for the tolerant, multicultural nation that is the UK, as she succeeded Rishi Sunak, the first British Asian prime minister, who was defeated at the last general election in July.

The gender barrier has long since been crossed in the UK, both at the government level and in the royal realm, as the modern world knew the legendary Queen Elizabeth II, who reigned for seven decades and followed in the footsteps of other famous female sovereigns like Queen Victoria and Elizabeth I. Badenoch will be the second person from a minority background to have a shot at the highest executive office in the country if her leadership survives until the next general election, which is due by the summer of 2029.

But is Badenoch the right person to lead the Tory party? During the Conservatives’ spell in power from 2010 until July’s election defeat, the party was widely viewed as having deeply divided the country and nearly collapsed its economy, while many Tory MPs pushed the electorate to score a historic own goal by convincing them that they would be better off outside the EU, rather than being part of the economic, social and political union on their doorstep?

Maybe Badenoch will do a great job managing the party in opposition. She will have to try to unify its splintered wings, ranging from the right-wing tribe that led the country in the years after the Brexit vote to the center-right forces that opposed the UK’s European exit and who were deeply marginalized as a result. The latter were the ones that built, over many decades, the reputation of the Conservatives as the country’s main “party of government.”

I am minded to think that Badenoch will be just another leader who will have a shot at bringing the party back from the wilderness it put itself in following the Brexit referendum. Time will tell if she is lucky enough to survive the internal conflicts the party has been suffering from since falling into the grip of certain unsavory, self-serving figures who evidently put themselves, their friends and their party ahead of the country.

Above all, I find it hard to see in Badenoch anything more than a figure who will be used by others in the party, due to her Nigerian background, to try to whitewash the accusations of racism levelled against the party and the Tories’ anti-immigration and anti-EU stances. Many believe that the political party she now leads has been funded during recent election campaigns by rich donors who do not hide their contempt for people of other colors and creeds.

Clearly, Badenoch, a Black woman and the daughter of Nigerian parents, born in Wimbledon in South London, who spent her childhood in Lagos and the US, must be tainted with the same brush as the leaders she has served under, especially Boris Johnson. The former PM was a remainer who switched to leading the campaign to leave the EU at the strike of a pen, and far from any conviction. Many believe that Badenoch is also an opportunist, having served in various ministerial roles in the Johnson government that vowed to “get Brexit done,” despite previously being on the record as saying that Brexit would be bad for British business and particularly traumatic for the UK car industry.

The question is whether she has it in her to rally voters and heal the rift between the country and the Conservative Party due to their many lies and scandals, as well as the tarnished integrity of those she served alongside in a government that was unceremoniously ejected from power.

The Tory party has always had a talent for breaking the mold in politics by promoting “different” personalities to the top jobs, like Benjamin Disraeli, the UK’s only Jewish prime minister, Andrew Bonar Law, a Canadian, and even John Major, who was seen as the boy from Brixton — a poor neighborhood in South London known for its large Afro-Caribbean community.

In selecting the controversial Badenoch — a computer engineer who worked in IT publishing and banking before becoming digital director of weekly magazine The Spectator, which is known as the British right’s bible — the Conservative Party still looks far away from healing itself. In putting at the helm someone who is seen as combative and controversial and who is against “woke,” the party is sticking to the route of far-right politics and populist forces along the lines of Donald Trump, Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen.

It is thought that Badenoch and her shadow Cabinet, with a total of just 121 Members of Parliament, are unlikely to succeed in effectively holding to account the centrist Labour government of Keir Starmer, unless of course Labour gives the Tories a lifeline by scuppering their own chances in government. Similarly, it is unlikely that she will shake off the taints of racism or the empty anti-migrant, anti-establishment populist rhetoric that have stuck to her party and unfortunately are not unique to the UK, as they have been making inroads in most democratic nations around the world.

• Mohamed Chebaro is a British Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.