Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said people didn’t treat her differently when she moved to the UK from Nigeria but she feared such acceptance was in danger of being eroded
Kemi Badenoch has said she experienced “soft bigotry” rather than “meaningful” prejudice after moving from Nigeria to the UK.
The Conservative leader was born in Britain but raised mostly in Nigeria until 1996, when she moved permanently to the UK aged 16. In an interview with the Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth podcast, she said people didn’t treat her differently but she feared such acceptance was in danger of being eroded.
Asked if she was made conscious of her “blackness” after coming to Britain, she said: “Never. And I think that this is one of the things that probably made me an outlier. I knew I was going to a place where I would look different from everybody and I didn’t think that that was odd.” It comes after Nigel Farage unveiled an ex-Tory who made racist remark on WhatsApp as its newest defector.
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Ms Badenoch said: “What I found actually quite interesting was that people didn’t treat me differently. It’s why I am so quick to defend the UK whenever there are accusations of racism.
“I did not experience prejudice in any meaningful form. That doesn’t mean that prejudice doesn’t exist or that it doesn’t happen. Many people do (experience it), but I didn’t, not seriously.
“I had a couple of instances at school which now I look back and I think, ‘Well, that might have been prejudice” but even then, when I talk about the soft bigotry of lower expectations, teachers saying, ‘You don’t need to go to all these fancy universities, just to to this Poly or this former Poly’.
“Some of it was just coming from what they thought was a good place, they thought they were being helpful or they were well-meaning. I don’t think they were trying to disadvantage me. So I didn’t feel that way.”
Asked what she would like to see to make the world better for her three children, she said: “I think that I was so lucky and it would be a dereliction of duty to leave a worse world to them. I have mixed race children.
“Making sure that we keep a socially cohesive society, one where the colour of your skin doesn’t matter any more than the colour of your eyes or your hair is quite important.
“I think we’ve done such a brilliant job in the UK and that’s in danger of turning because of people on both extremes.
“Those who want to pretend that this is the most awful place in the world to live if you’re an ethnic minority, they’ve created a lot of damage, especially since 2020, but now we’re also seeing a rise in ethno-nationalism, of people who are trying to pretend that those of us who are different skin colours are not meant to be here.
“They are two sides of the same coin. Both need to be dealt with. I don’t want them (my children) to grow up in a society that is like South Africa was, where people were segregated or where the colour of their skin is something to be noted.
“But even more than that, I want them to grow up in an economically successful country. It’s all about making sure people can have a good quality of life.”
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