Identity politics a threat to our values says Kemi
KEMI BADENOCH has launched her bid for the Conservative leadership with a pledge to ‘tell the truth’ and overhaul the Government’s ‘wrong’ approach.
Setting out her pitch for the top job, Ms Badenoch, who last week quit as Equalities Minister, called for ‘strong but limited government focused on the essentials’.
Ms Badenoch, who has been vocal over culture wars, also hit out at ‘identity politics’.
She wrote: ‘Exemplified by coercive control, the imposition of views, the shutting down of debate, the end of due process, identity politics is not about tolerance or individual rights but the very opposite of our crucial and enduring British values.’ Her backers include MPs Ben Bradley, Tom Hunt and Lee Anderson.
Ms Badenoch, MP for Saffron Walden, wrote in The Times: ‘Without change the Conservative Party, Britain, and the Western world will continue to drift. Aggressive and assertive rivals will outpace us economically and outmanoeuvre us internationally.’
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Badenoch, 42, said Boris Johnson’s Government has been ‘doing many things badly and doing things in the wrong way’.
The ex-Treasury Minister said the Government has ‘never actually really drafted a very clear economic policy’, adding: ‘We’re often reactive, led by events.’ She also criticised former Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s council tax rebate and said: ‘Would it have been simpler just to let people keep their money in the first place rather than giving them rebates on council tax?’
Launching her bid, Ms Badenoch said: ‘I’m putting myself forward in this leadership election because I want to tell the truth. It’s the truth that will set us free.’
Last night, a source close to another leadership contender said MPs are concerned Ms Badenoch could end up splitting the party’s Right-wing vote.