Who is Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch?

Kemi BadenochKemi Badenoch has had a rapid rise in politics and is now one of the final two candidates to take over as Conservative party leader.

The North West Essex MP and former London Assembly member has courted controversy during her career and has been accused of lacking “courtesy” by some Tory colleagues.

Having announced her bid to lead her party with an article in the Times where she said the last administration “talked right and governed left” she has tried to maximise her appeal to those who may have been tempted to vote for Reform UK at the general election.B

Badenoch made headlines during the Conservative Party ConferenceConservative Party Conference in Birmingham when she described maternity pay as “excessive” and said five to 10 per cent of civil servants should “be in prison”.

She has also hit out at the Equality Act, saying it “fed a lot of the discontent” seen in British communities.

However, she remains a favourite among party members to take over from Rishi Sunak.

Tory MPs will choose between Badenoch and ex immigration minister Robert Jenrick in the vote among party members for their next leader.

But who is Kemi Badenoch and how did we get to this pointhow did we get to this point?

What is Kemi Badenoch’s political background?

Born in Wimbledon, Ms Badenoch lived in the US and Nigeria as a child before returning to the UK aged 16. Her father, Femi Adegoke, was a GP and her mother, Feyi Adegoke, was a professor of physiology.

She has talked about working at McDonald’s while studying for her A-levels in Morden, south London.

After graduating from the University of Sussex with a master’s degree in computer systems engineering, she worked for companies including the Royal Bank of Scotland and private bank Coutts, as well as the Spectator magazine.

She joined the Conservative Party in 2005, aged 25. Five years later, she stood as the Tory candidate in Dulwich and West Norwood, coming third in the vote won by Labour’s Tessa Jowell.

Then in September 2015 she joined the London Assembly, retaining her seat at the 2016 election. She became the London Tory spokeswoman for the economy and also sat on the transport committee and policing and crime committee.

She backed the Vote Leave campaign in 2016 and at the following year’s election she she stood in the safe Conservative seat of Saffron Walden in Essex and was elected to Parliament.

Ms Badenoch, 44, and married to banker Hamish Badenoch with whom she has three children.

Kemi Badenoch’s rise through the Tory ranks

Badenoch has had a long careerlong career within the Conservative Party and has been tipped consistently for big things.

She has served as international trade secretary before taking up her current role as business and trade secretary and in 2022, she put herself forward to replace former prime minister Boris Johnson as a “fresh face” for the Tories.

Ms Badenoch showed her right-wing credentials by standing on an anti-woke and small government platform.

More than a dozen Tory colleagues, including Michael Gove, backed her bid but, she ultimately lost to Liz Truss in the leadership campaign, finishing fourth.

She then went on to serve as international trade secretary from September 2022 to February 2023 and minister for women and equalities.

When the Tories lost power at the July general election, Ms Badenoch became shadow secretary of state for housing, communities and local government.

Kemi Badenoch’s controversies

Ms Badenoch has rubbed people up the wrong way, with Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle and actor David Tennant both expressing frustration with her tone.

She was also criticised for publicly shaming journalist Nadine White in 2021. The HuffPost reporter had asked the then equalities minister’s office about suggestions Ms Badenoch had refused to participate in a video featuring black cross-party politicians seeking to promote the Covid-19 vaccination.

Screenshots of Ms White’s two emails were shared on Twitter by Ms Badenoch, who branded them “creepy and bizarre”. Labour called for an investigation and Ms White said the MP’s actions set a dangerous precedent, threatening the role of a free press.

Ms Badenoch also admitted hacking Harriet Harman’s website in 2008 as part of a “foolish prank”. She guessed the Labour MP’s password and then posted a hoax blog post claiming that the then-minister for women and equality supported Boris Johnson in the London elections.

During her time as minister for women and equalities she challenged the Equality Act and has furthered her criticism in her latest leadership campaign by saying “two tier policing” was softer on protesters for progressive causes and racial minorities in recent riots.

In an online rally, she said: “I think that one of the things we need to strongly emphasise is equality under the law.

“There are too many people who have misinterpreted the Equality Act and think that there are different groups which are protected in different ways. That is not true.

“It is one of the things that has fed a lot of the discontent within communities, whether they’re complaining about two-tier policing or about the equality law being misapplied. You see it, whether it’s in the battles between women and trans rights activists, between different religions, between men and women, between black and white.”

Ms Badenoch attracted criticism for not attending a Conservative leadership husting in Yarm, North Yorkshire on August 17 because she was on holiday.

A supporter of one of her rivals said her non-appearance showed she did not value the region enough, pointing out that the event was the sole one being held in the north.

At the Conservative Party Conference she made headlines for suggesting one in ten civil servants should be arrested for being terrible at their jobs and describing maternity pay as “excessive”.

One senior Tory MP told the Standard that Ms Badenoch could be an exciting leader, but some were concerned about her imploding.

“We know she’s Mrs T,” they said. “We just haven’t worked out if that’s Thatcher or Truss.”