(Kemi Badenoch - newly elected leader of the Conservative Party.)
On the 4th July this year the United Kingdom held a general election which ousted the Conservative government and installed a Labour administration. The Conservatives suffered their worst ever defeat under the former leader Rishi Sunak winning just 121 parliamentary seats, it was an extraordinarily bad result.
The Labour Party actually won a landslide securing 402 seats. However, while not to detract from Labour's success the picture is somewhat distorted. The right of the political spectrum in the UK is now split and we have seen the emergence of Nigel Farage's right wing Reform UK party, which managed to secure five seats in Parliament.
Reform UK managed to attract a significant chunk of the Conservative electorate, which saw Reform climb into second place in almost 100 seats, thereby nudging the Conservative Party into third place and letting in a Labour winner. Reform UK has surged and made significant gains in hundreds of seats across the country. It would not be an untruth to state that Reform UK won it for Labour.
When assessing all the results the country actually took a step to the right but because of the electoral system we use, the first past the post model, this means the country ends up with a Labour government it doesn't have a huge passion for. So for example Reform UK secured 14% of the national vote winning 5 seats. The Liberal Democrat Party secured 12% of the vote but won 72 seats, they actually won less votes than Reform UK but secured 67 more seats in Parliament, it's madness really.
Anyway, after the worst election result in the history of the Conservative Party the former leader and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak obviously stepped down to allow a new leader to be elected. Rishi has stayed on for four long months while the Conservatives find a new leader, which they have just announced.
The new leader of the Conservative Party is Kemi Badenoch, she is the first ever black woman not just to lead the Conservatives but to be elected leader of any major political party in the United Kingdom. In terms of representation perhaps we can agree that this is a positive development, whatever your politics.
I must admit I do find it staggering that despite all of the diversity policies, the constant woke rhetoric and the obsession with identity politics that we get from the likes of the Labour Party they have never once elected a leader who is anything other than a straight, white male. Yet in the Conservative Party they have now had three women leaders and Prime Ministers, in Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and now Kemi Badenoch, and a male ethnic minority leader and Prime Minister in Rishi Sunak - the irony!
However, what is interesting about the Conservatives new leader is that Kemi Badenoch is fairly right wing and doesn't care much for identity politics and she is very anti-woke. Her main critique of why things went wrong for the Conservatives in the general election is that the Conservative Party 'talked right but governed left'. So don't expect much liberalism from this woman. It will be interesting to see what direction she takes the Conservatives in.
Peace!
Greetings @peaceandmoney
Interesting...tre interesant! Conservatism is blind to race. Perhaps she will transcend the race issue as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did the gender isseue. She thought like a man.
Have you read the speeches of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher?....she was a Sparkling Gem in Britain's history....imo.
Kind Regards,
Bleujay
You are absolutely right when you say conservatism is blind to race, perhaps historically that wasn't always the case but that of course wasn't just conservatism it was the way of the world at one point.
I have indeed read and watched many of Margaret Thatcher's speeches and whatever your politics my word she was a very skilled orator who could captivate mass audiences.
Yes, she achieved an incredible amount to get to the top position and that was back in the late 70's and all of that was sort of before my time. But look what she proved was capable of back then and demonstrated that gender is not an obstacle to power and status.
The interesting thing about Thatcher was she was also very modest, she never wanted the fact that she was a woman to somehow characterise her premiership - and she didn't. She just got one with running the country.
She wanted to be treated exactly as her male counterparts were treated. She didn't need to pass tons of legislation to 'equalise' the playing field. She once said of the female equality and feminism agenda that she didn't need to cheat to get to the top and she was right, she did it all by herself in an age where men were still running most of the show when it came to politics.