How Kemi can really win back (some) young people

The Tory Kamala Strategy

Something which would offend Mr Lobe about ‘UK Politics’ in 2026 is that Kemi Badenoch, despite being a black woman, enjoys almost no support at all from the ‘black community’. This is a bit of a disaster fighting an election in 2029 where race and identity will be prominent. No support from black people and she is also not going to win the support of racist White people. That is how you end up with twenty seats.

When I say ‘black community’ I mean prominent black figures (musicians, journalists) and not literally every black person – she may well have a following with the black anime watchers, or the personal finance camel coat contingent. But the main tastemakers are not encouraging black people to rally behind the Conservative Party leader. They are not voting tribally, Mr Lobe. Could they be high trust after all?

Well, quite possibly. But UK black people also have a very specific gripe with Kemi Badenoch. They are apoplectic about how Kemi speaks about Nigeria. UK black people believe she is slandering her home country when she says she had to go to school with a machete or collect water with rusty buckets. The Nigerian press criticises her for this as well

The section of the international black community where Kemi does not appear to have this problem is in the United States. I am very intrigued by the fact that Nicki Minaj has now thrown her lot in with Mrs Badenoch following on from the full-throated endorsement offered by Azealia Banks. These are the first celebrity endorsements that Kemi has received from a black person and they have come from a country not known to her (although Kemi did occasionally visit the US as a child).

What is going on here? My humble suggestion is that black people in the United States, unlike UK black people, have no idea what is going on in Africa. The average black person in London will be second generation from Ghana, Cameroon etc, they will travel ‘back home’ once or twice a year, they still have a real connection to the continent, so they get offended on its behalf, and can tell when Kemi is exaggerating for effect. The average black woman from St Louis has the same experience of Africa that the average Scottish Tory circa 2005 would have – absolutely none at all.

Kemi could tell ‘Sexyy Red’ (pictured above) that everyone in Africa lives in little straw huts and that everybody got a single grain of rice for their birthday and she’d wordlessly nod along whilst trying to decide which safe seat in the Home Counties could be rustled up for her at short notice. Nicki Minaj’s endorsement of Kemi yesterday drew a comparison between her and Margaret Thatcher which is indistinguishable from the slathering Telegraph columns that CCHQ commission about twice a week.

This is only possible because American black people have spent upwards of three centuries away from their ancestral homeland in Africa (Kemi is not the first Nigerian to benefit from the Transatlantic slave trade).

The endorsement of Kemi by these celebrities - Minaj has an enormous cult following in Britain – is an opportunity which the Tories should build upon. It will be much easier for Kemi to win over a section of ‘young people’ by cultivating American black musicians than it will be offering up free poppers in Westminster Newsagents or whatever else TheYoungTories WhatsApp group can come up with.

I will not attempt to diagnose what young people are really like. I have never had a conversation with somebody from Generation Alpha. But I can be fairly certain there are more ‘Barbs’ aged 18-21 than there are ‘aspirational’ young people who dream about taking part in a property owning democracy or get exercised about not being able to eat pasta in the roads in and around Clapham Common tube station.

So perhaps Kemi could lean into the fact that she is, like them, a black woman, lean into the snappy Nigerian Auntie, lean into the World of Warcraft gaming, let Kemi be Kemi and she may start to develop some organic momentum with young ethnic minorities. It’s a better plan than ‘aspiration’ (they aspire to lock multitudes of male Parliamentary Assistant in their grace and favour Vauxhall flat).

Kemi is very fortunate timing wise because American black culture is reaching levels of dominance in Britain not seen since the early 2000s. black culture from around the late 2000s through to around 2018/19 was being exported moreso than imported in Britain. Grime music became popular internationally especially in Europe, shows like ‘Top Boy’ had international audiences. I distinctly remember visiting Albania or some other Central European country around this time and encountering teenagers with Nike manbags asking me if I had ever heard of ‘Dave’. There was a moment.

A moment which has been pissed down the drain. Partly because of the repetitiveness and laziness of UK black musicians. There are only so many times you can listen to ‘get on the wing like Persie’ or meet a sweet one in Bagel King. The only contemporary UK black music which has any sway in Britain now is rehashes of R and B (Bellah) or crappy imitations of reggaeton with a Dem Bow rhythm (PinkPantheress). “Loves to sample 90s and 2000s”. Stuck, dead, dying culture. The most popular contemporary black musicians globally now are all American (Doechii, GloRilla, SZA etc) with the possible exception of Tyla (South African), who again is just rehashing music from the 90s. I would guess that Jennie has much more cultural relevancy with the average 18 black-british teenage girl today than does ‘Giggs’ or ‘Skepta’.

Part of the explanation for why UK black people are losing cultural power is TikTok, which I believe is having the same homogenising impact on black culture as did TV in the late 90s and 2000s. black UK culture in the late 2000s and early 2010s was really a series of subcultures online, now that teenagers get their music from TikTok ‘GRMdaily’ is not able to exert the monopoly that it once did, so there is little breathing space for British music. It is also possible that as the UK black population becomes more African and less Caribbean that they are losing cultural power internationally. Please refer to Caribbean Crown for a lengthier disquisition on this tension.

The point here is that if American black women start calling Kemi Badenoch ‘iconic’ the Ukay community here will ultimately fall into line. Do the full Kamala and pay Megan Thee Stallion to endorse Kemi. This is how Badenoch could also make inroads into the Greens. Ethnic minorities, particularly black people, will never be able to love Zack Polanksi. On a fundamental level the man is ‘bummy’. He has not been received by UK black musicians with anywhere near the same enthusiasm as Jeremy Corbyn.

With a bit of encouragement I think UK black people could come out 70-80% for the Conservative Party. It won’t win you the election, but it will serve the Tories the same purpose that going in for the Hindu vote did, in that there will always be a few super diverse areas that you can fall back on when the White English are foaming about the borders.

Here is my suggestion to team Badenoch. Doja Cat is currently on a world tour and will be in the YooKay at the end of this month. Doja Cat is an interesting character who spent her early 20s in her bedroom taking drugs making music for a tiny micro online audience, has been socialised primarily on the internet and has been somewhat cancelled for her troubling racist views and memes.

A longstanding criticism of Doja Cat amongst her audience is that she only dates White men (‘swirling’). Badenoch has implausibly ended up married to a Scottish White. I cannot be sure but I suspect that the two of them would have a lot in common.

Make a statement by having Badenoch meet with Doja Cat. It will be exciting for the more ‘cosmopolitan’ members of your team and is a good chance to relaunch Kemi’s personal brand. If you aren’t going to get rid of her, you really do need to take every opportunity that comes up, no matter how marginal.