Rishi Sunak, who lost the July election as Conservative leader, was fond of saying he was proud to be the U.K.’s first British-Asian prime minister — but “prouder that it was not that big a deal.”
Badenoch was born in the U.K. and grew up in Nigeria, before returning to London as a teenager to finish her schooling and attend university.
In 2023, she called Britain “the best country in the world to be Black” — eliciting applause from right-wing newspapers and a torrent of criticism from progressive pundits.
But it is a source of real pride for the Conservatives — dusting themselves off from a major election defeat earlier this year — that they have just chosen their second leader in a row from an ethnic minority and their fourth female leader. The party’s first ethnic minority leader was Benjamin Disraeli, who first served as prime minister back in 1868.
Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank, said there was initially “slow progress” of non-white representation in parliament after the election of four Black Labour MPs in 1987.
But this was followed by “rapid acceleration” after 2010 — and real progress among Conservatives long pilloried for lack of diversity.
