Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Kemi Badenoch Conservative MP

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY

SOPHY RIDGE: We are joined now by our next guest, Kemi Badenoch, thank you very much for being with us this morning, we appreciate it. First of all please could I get your reaction to the very sad news about Sir Jeremy Heywood?

KEMI BADENOCH: I am absolutely shocked to hear this news. It was only recently that we heard that he was stepping down for health reasons and not returning. I never worked with Sir Jeremy personally but I know many colleagues, colleagues in government, who did and they were all in awe of his ability, he was a very impressive individual, very gifted. He worked under many different governments, governments of all colours and he was someone who Prime Ministers often looked to and trusted to get things done. He was, in the words of a friend of mine, he was an amazing person who could always find a solution to a tricky problem and many of the things that have happened in this country happened because of him. It’s a huge loss to the country, a huge loss to the government, it’s very sad news and our thoughts go to his family.

SR: Thank you. Of course we’ll have more on that news later on in the programme but I also do want to talk to you about Brexit. Now you are someone of course who voted to leave the European Union. We can have a little look at something that you previously said, “As an economic liberal I want to see Britain trading more freely around the world.” So would you be happy then with a customs arrangement that limited Britain’s ability to trade around the world?

KEMI BADENOCH: Well the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that we’d be leaving the customs union so whatever sort of deal we get it should be something that allows us to become a more global outlook, you know, trading more globally with the rest of the world and that’s the outlook that we want.

SR: There are reports of course that the backstop, if you like, is going to be an agreement that the whole of the United Kingdom stays in a customs union with the EU, is that something that you would accept?

KEMI BADENOCH: I still think it’s speculation at the moment. I don’t see how, given the promises the Prime Minister has made, that that’s something that could be on the table.

SR: Even temporarily?

KEMI BADENOCH: It depends on what’s meant by temporarily. If it’s something indefinite then absolutely not.

SR: So you’d have to see some kind of date, if you like, in order to …

KEMI BADENOCH: I think that’s certainly what the government has been working to but ideally it wouldn’t even get to that.

SR: Now moving on to other issues. You’re somebody who said that you want to try and change the image of the Conservative party to show it is not just about stuffy aristocrats and Old Etonians. Do you think that the Conservatives have an image problem?

KEMI BADENOCH: Yes and no. I certainly think that a lot of people view the stereotype of us which is not actually what we’re like and it is more about showing what the Conservative really is. It’s people like me, people like my next door neighbour Robert Halfon, James Cleverly, Priti Patel. This is a very forward, diverse group of people and we’re representative of the vast majority of people who vote Conservative but sadly when I knock on doors people say oh, I didn’t think Conservatives came in the sort of shape and size and colour and so on …

SR: You said you have been mistaken for a Labour MP.

KEMI BADENOCH: Yes, one of the more disappointing things that have happened to me.

SR: What happened there then?

KEMI BADENOCH: Well I let people know that I am definitely not Labour and I think they are pleasantly surprised, they are usually pleasantly surprised because they tend to think that race is such a big factor in how we vote and my hope is that my having this role goes some way to challenge that.

SR: Yes, there is a bit of an issue isn’t there with BAME voters in the Conservative party and if we look at the last few elections, in 2017 only 19% of BAME voters went for the Conservative party compared to 73% going for Labour. I mean why do think it is that the Conservative party is a turn-off for these voters?

KEMI BADENOCH: There are many, many reasons. Some of them are historical, so if you look at the countries that many people from ethnic minorities tend to come from, emigrated from – and I speak as a first generation immigrant myself – they tend to be socialist countries where socialist politics is more normal, so we already have a huge barrier in terms of actually showing people there are other types of politics that you can do so that’s the first one. The second one is that other parties, Labour in particular really, Labour has been better historically at doing outreach with these voters and that’s something that the party is doing a lot of at the moment.

SR: I mean do you think that some of the issues are the allegations for example around Islamophobia in the Conservative party? The former Chair, Baroness Warsi said it’s very widespread but it’s being effectively ignored. Is it something that the Conservative party needs to take more seriously?

KEMI BADENOCH: I completely disagree with Baroness Warsi’s view on that. We take every single allegation of Islamophobia seriously and where we do find party members or people who hold positions in local government doing things, we suspend them, we investigate them …

SR: So why is it then that the Muslim Council of Britain has called for an inquiry?

KEMI BADENOCH: I don't think that the Muslim Council of Britain is an organisation that would look very favourably on the Conservative party anyway so I think there is probably a political motive there. When I have looked at the cases that we’ve talked about I’ve seen strong investigations which have been done fairly and there are many people in the party who are Muslims who don’t recognise the allegations about Islamophobia.

SR: Okay, now you are in charge of candidate selection, a recent report by the Fawcett Society found that female parliamentary candidates are still facing barriers to entry, getting asked questions for example about what their husband thinks about them wanting to be an MP, about what they’re going to do about childcare. Is that something you have had personal experience of or is it something that you’re worried about other women experiencing?

KEMI BADENOCH: No, I’ve never had personal experience of that and I think those things used to happen quite a while ago but the stories still go on …

SR: So you think maybe it is putting off women coming forward?

KEMI BADENOCH: Yes, it is definitely something that puts people off and we let them know that it is actually not like that anymore but the real issue we have is women not wanting to come forward because they are worried about personal abuse, they don’t like the toxic atmosphere of politics at the moment, there are so many barriers that women have in terms of coming forward and a lot of it is actually the way that we approach these types of jobs. We like to think that we must be qualified or over-qualified before we go for them, men don’t and if you look at how long it takes, it takes a woman about two years to make a decision to do it and with the men I see it’s about 48 hours to a week and that alone is responsible for there being so many more men than women coming forward.

SR: Do you think that women have a harder time on social media then? You talked about abuse earlier.

KEMI BADENOCH: They tend to attract more attention simply because there are not as many women in politics. It’s the same if you are an ethnic minority as well so I have loads of followers for instance, I have no idea who they are or where they come from, they are not necessarily constituents and then if you represent a party that’s in government people have a lot more to be angry about.

SR: So are you saying you are getting that kind of abuse, racist, perhaps sexist abuse on social media?

KEMI BADENOCH: To be honest Sophy, I actually don’t check my Twitter unless it’s someone I follow, I don’t see the messages, so I don’t feel that way but I know a lot of other MPs do and quite a few have come off it as well.

SR: Probably quite sensible. Now to finish the interview I want to talk a bit about your life because you are not the typical Member of Parliament shall we say. You used to carry a machete to school, you’ll have to tell me a bit more about this story, what was that about?

KEMI BADENOCH: Yes, so this is when I was living in Nigeria. I grew up in Nigeria and I went to a state boarding school, it’s a federal government school and you have to bring in all your own equipment. We had to cut the grass ourselves and we had something called manual labour, everyone had to do pretty hard work every day and you cut grass with a machete. I think I was telling a story about how knife crime is more than just the availability of weapons, it’s also attitudes and I was talking about how everyone in school had a machete and we didn’t use them to attack each other. There was a lot more to what was going on in terms of crime but yes, that is the case, it was under my bed!

SR: You have also previously spoken about what you’ve described the arrogance of white men thinking they can save Africa, what did you mean by that?

KEMI BADENOCH: Oh that is a very historical quote, Sophy. This must have been about the mid-noughties and I remember getting very frustrated about people and it isn’t directed at white men, certainly not, but I do think there is a saviour complex for people who don’t actually understand very much about Africa.

SR: You were talking about people like Bob Geldof for example …

KEMI BADENOCH: I’m not naming any names but I do think that a lot of the solutions to the problems in that continent need to come from that continent, I don't think it is going to be people from here who can ride in on a white horse and save everybody there and I do worry about that saviour complex.

SR: And just finally, when you were growing up in Nigeria, you have spoken about living without electricity, having to fetch water in a bucket from a mile away. How do you think that experience has defined your politics now?

KEMI BADENOCH: It’s at the very heart of it. I think growing up in a third world country has really shaped me and makes me think about everything from the context of what’s it like for other people and how can we make things better so things like energy security for example. When you’ve lived with black outs, you get very paranoid about what are we going to do, is there going to be enough energy, enough fuel, how are we managing looking at balancing that with dealing with issues around climate change? So it affects that. It affects how I think about identity politics, growing up in a place where I couldn’t stand for election the way I have now in the UK in Nigeria. I remember talking about it with a politician and…

SR: Why was that?

KEMI BADENOCH: He said you can’t just stand where you live, you have to go to where your family’s from and my grandparents are from a place, they moved away from there in the 40s or 50s and I’ve never been there and he said that’s where you’d have to go, you’d have to go to that particular town to stand for election whereas now I am elected in Saffron Walden which is a place I didn’t have any connections to, I was a Londoner and they just liked the interview I gave and said this is the person they want to represent us.

SR: Very different from Nigeria, Saffron Walden, I should image.

KEMI BADENOCH: It is, yes and I think that’s amazing what we have here, that people don’t judge you by where you’re coming from but by what you can do.

SR: Okay, thank you very much.

KEMI BADENOCH: Thanks Sophy.