Kemi Badenoch Hits Back At Suella Braverman’s Claim She Can’t Be English

The Conservative Party leader said she did not want her mixed race children “to hear rhetoric that makes them feel that they’re not a part of this country”.

Braverman, who was born in Harrow, raised in Wembley, went to school in Brent, studied at Cambridge University and lives in Hampshire, said she is “proud to be British”.

But the former Tory home secretary, who defected to Reform UK last year and is now the party’s education spokesperson, insisted that Englishness is “an ethnicity” and therefore she does not qualify.

She said: “My family and ancestors have a link to Britain which spans centuries. But in no way are we English. Yes, I was born in England, speak English and support the England football team. And indeed, I love England and the English people.

“But to say I’m English is to take a ‘laissez-faire, anything-goes’ attitude to ethnicity, citizenship and identity. It also denies me my Asian heritage.

Her comments triggered an online backlash.

In an interview with Sky News at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, Badenoch accused Braverman of “identity politics”.

She said: “Suella Braverman is a Reform MP. She’s Nigel Farage’s problem now, not mine.

“She is perfectly entitled to speak about her own identity. I am somebody who doesn’t like identity politics. I am not interested in this endless conversation of trying to split people into lots of boxes.

“I have children who are half black, half white. They’re mixed race. I don’t want to hear rhetoric that makes them feel that they’re not a part of this country.”

Badenoch added: “We just had a World Cup this summer. Nobody was asking whether the black players were English or not.

“If that’s the conversation that Reform want to have, that’s their business. But I am not interested in that at all.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.