Is Britain a racist country? This is a question that sharply divides most Brits, but for one Government minister, the answer is an emphatic ‘no’. In an interview with UnHerd’s LockdownTV, Kemi Badenoch, exchequer secretary for the treasury and an Equalities Minister, tells Freddie Sayers that Britain is the “best place in the world to be black” and that an excessive focus on race alone can end up obscuring the debate.
Her comments follow on from an education report that came out last week which found that white working-class pupils had been failed by decades of neglect in England’s education system. It is examples like these, argues Badenoch, that highlight how phrases like ‘white privilege’ are not only divisive, but inaccurate too.
Is Britain racist?
No. And I think many people find that answer challenging. The analogy I often use to express it is that I don’t believe that the UK is a criminal country. Despite almost everyone I know having been a victim of crime, the threshold for what one uses to describe whether an entire country is racist for me is quite high. It needs to be embedded in systems deliberately designed to disadvantaged people like we saw in the US with Jim Crow or in South Africa with apartheid. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have problems. But my view is that we should look at the very best in terms of the behaviour of the people around us.
- Kemi Badenoch, UnHerd
On “White Privilege”:
When the zeitgeist is talking about white privilege, unconsciously, I think a lot of the policy is then focused away from those people who need it the most into other areas that are easy for other people to talk about…Many people who use it [white privilege] are well-meaning but they don’t understand that it is contested, and the meaning of the phrase is contested…
- Kemi Badenoch, UnHerd
Is it difficult taking these positions as a black politician?
I know that if I don’t say these things, it’ll be very hard for other people to say what they believe to be true…What really pleases me is that after any intervention I make, I get so many emails from not just white people, but actually lots of ethnic minorities, who say, “thank God you’re saying this, because it feels like no one understands or hears my point of view”…Actually having a government minister saying “we don’t think this is the right way to do these things” is very helpful. So I’ll keep going.
- Kemi Badenoch, UnHerd
On her experience as a first-generation immigrant:
I lived in Nigeria, and I moved to the UK aged 16. I came here on my own… Growing up in a place where everybody looked the same meant that I didn’t have a view of being ‘othered’; I chose to come to this country. One of the advantages you have as a first generation immigrant is that you can often compare two totally different places. That’s one of the reasons I always say that Britain is the best place in the world to be black, specifically. And I still stick to that.”
- Kemi Badenoch, UnHerd
On why she ‘hates’ the phrase culture wars:
I hate the phrase culture wars, I don’t even like the term woke. It’s not a word I use. One of the reasons why is because it makes it sound like you’re fighting a battle with people rather than making a very clear, coherent argument. For a long time, the government didn’t say anything on these topics, because we don’t want to look like we’re distracted from the things that really matter to people like looking after their health, their education, the economy.
- Kemi Badenoch, UnHerd
Who is fighting the culture wars?
You can look at the Batley and Spen by-election as a very classic example that even when the Right says nothing, a lot of these arguments that are supposedly cultural arguments are happening purely on the Left. Just look at the battle between LGBT rights versus the rights of religious minorities. This is mostly a battle on the Left. It’s the same thing with Left-wing feminists and trans-rights activists. These are not Right-wing battles, and the Right doesn’t need to get involved for these so-called culture wars to take place.
- Kemi Badenoch, UnHerd
On the race and ethnic disparities report:
All but one of the [Commission on Race and Ethnicity Disparities] report’s authors were from an ethnic minority background. They were called Coons and Uncle Toms; their workplaces were targeted; they had death threats. We can recognise in a liberal society that anyone who behaves like that certainly cannot be on the right side of the argument. There are people who are threatened by hearing these things, because in some way they profit, if not financially, but emotionally from these arguments. It helps them affirm their own beliefs, which I believe comes from a hard Left perspective.
- Kemi Badenoch, UnHerd
Are we at a turning point in discussions around race in Britain?
People shouldn’t be rash when having these discussions. It can be very sensitive, especially for those people who have had really awful horrible experiences, and we mustn’t discount that. We do want to look at everything that’s happening. We want people to trust us because we have an ambition to provide opportunity to all, irrespective of whatever background or gender or sexuality someone comes from. That’s really what this government believes, and that’s what we’re fighting for.
- Kemi Badenoch, UnHerd
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SubscribeThank you! Some sanity and perspective finally.
Hear, hear. All this hysteria and cant over football! As if it means anything beyond a transient, drunken five minutes of mob sentimentality. And people imagine that this creates “togetherness” or “community” or the triumph of the “rainbow”! Was ever there a more blatant instance of wishful thinking? Authentic identities can never be shaken permanently into this momentary vinaigrette of TV “solidarity” – why do they think it so difficult to erase “racism” from supporting a team? Rangers and Celtic, anyone? Like all bullying sentimentalists, our increasingly totalitarian bosses have fallen for their own piffling lies; but even as they shed their slimy tears of joy, like Stalin weeping into his vodka, they double and double down and down on the forcing press of “multi-culture”.
FootballRugby is by far the best sport on earth, and onlydeviantsfools think otherwise.Personally, I much prefer Rugby to Football – though there’s little to be gained by trying to convert a fan of one sport to the other.
BUT, there is a lesson from Rugby that could/should be learned across all comments pages like these.
One of the great joys of Rugby – something surely that can be celebrated even by people who don’t follow the game – is that opposing side’s fans all sit together. There is never crowd trouble – they’ll be some good natured joshing, for sure, but never any trouble.
Whether it is lower league Rugby, through to a top-of-the-table clash between premier sides, or even a bitterly fought international match, the fans sit together, drink and sing together and – as often as not – a fan of the losing side will congratulate a winning supporter on their success at the end of it.
My younger son’s first experience of a live game (several years ago now) was taking him to Wasps v Harlequins at the Stoop on his 5th birthday. I was a lone Wasps fan sat in a crowd of Quins, and Wasps were on the wrong side of a hiding. All the guys around us were telling my son that he shouldn’t follow his Dad’s team as they were clearly second best and should instead become a Quins fan. We were all chatting and laughing and they found out it was my son’s birthday.
As we took our seats again after half-time, a group of total strangers had been to the Club shop and bought him a Quins shirt, a Quins hat and a Quins flag. By the end of the match he was standing on his seat singing “The Mighty Quin” whilst I was being teased about my son now being a cuckoo in the nest.
He is, I’m afraid to say, an ardent Harlequins fan to this day.
That is one of the (many) reasons I love Rugby.
It should be perfectly possible for people who passionately support one side of an argument to be able to respect people who passionately believe in the other side. We can believe the other is misguided and wrong, but there is no need to insist that they must therefore be evil! There is much too much of that in evidence in political debate over the last several years and, at a guess, such attitudes have never yet convinced anyone to change their mind.
It’s also one of the reasons there’s very little atmosphere at rugby grounds. Whilst I can watch rugby, internationals anyway, being at the game is a soulless experience. Give me footballs tribalism any day of the week, even if it does go too far now and again
Very well said Mr. West. The Football Association chose the team which it thought had the best chance of winning something. If they thought they were choosing a team to represent the country, or the people, of England they failed as they were bound to do.
dltd.