Kemi on consequences

UK Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch writes:

We can see it everywhere – from the recent looting by hordes of teenagers, to the explosion in welfare dependency, to the tide of small-boat arrivals that mock our border controls on a daily basis. They’re all symptoms of the same disease: the collapse of consequences in British life.

All of us were shocked by the phone footage of children smashing up shops in broad daylight, stealing, laughing, filming themselves as though it were a game.

Some commentators immediately reached for a racial explanation, but that was to miss the point completely.

While the majority of young looters in Clapham, south London, seemed to have Caribbean or African heritage, the fact is that children in Lagos and Nairobi do not behave that way.

Why? Because in Nigeria and Kenya the boundaries are clear and actions have consequences. Parents, communities and authorities do not wring their hands or look the other way. It’s a lesson we’ve forgotten here.

Over time, Britain has convinced itself that crime, idleness and bad behaviour are things to be explained away rather than clamped down upon. We are building a culture in which people think they can do whatever they like – and that nothing will happen in response. All too often, they are right.

We didn’t get here overnight. For years, there’s been a drip, drip, drip of institutional and cultural change, not least the belief that social programmes matter more than tough enforcement in maintaining discipline. I profoundly disagree.

What was London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s answer to the Clapham looting? An extra £30million for youth clubs in London, as if children and teenagers smash up shops because there’s nowhere to play table tennis.

This is spot on – it is not race, but culture and consequences.

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