“It’s not a meritocracy until everyone starts with the same opportunities, is it?” – Laura Wade
The right wing of the Tory Party is triumphant! Kemi Badenoch is now leader of the Conservative Party and the next possible Prime Minister. She was chosen by just under 59,000 Conservative Party members, 0.0853% of the total population.
Ms Badenoch describes herself as a “disruptor”, and argues for a low-tax, free market economy. She is married to a banker, is an ardent admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and is an energetic critic of “identity politics". Race, gender and class are uncomfortable social concepts for Badenoch as she emphasises the importance of meritocracy and individual responsibility over group identity.
Given her admiration for Margaret Thatcher this should come as no surprise as Thatcher once declared
“There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families” (Women’s Own: 1987)
This is of course a non-sense.
“Society provides the infrastructure, institutions, and support systems necessary for individuals to succeed and thrive. The existence of collective responsibilities, such as healthcare, education, and social welfare, suggests that society, as a whole, has a role to play in supporting its members.” (The Socratic Method: 11/11/23)
To deny the existence of society is clearly untenable and the apologists for Thatcher claim that what she was really emphasising was personal responsibility and the role of individuals and families in solving their own problems rather than relying solely on government.
I would argue that the vast majority of individuals and families DO initially look to their own resources to solve any immediate problems they may be experiencing. Unfortunately, the availability of these resources is very unevenly and unfairly distributed within Britain, some families being much more able to help themselves than others.
Let's take Kemi Badenoch's family as an example.
Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke (Kemi Badenoch) was born in a Wimbledon private hospital in 1980. Her mother travelled from Nigeria to England, just before the British Nationality Act 1981 abolished automatic birthright citizenship, thereby ensuring her daughter had British citizenship. Once Kemi was born her mother returned to Nigeria.
The reason I retell this story is because it clearly demonstrates that parental family circumstances help determine future outcomes for the next generation. Badenoch’s parents used their wealth – her father was a doctor and her mother a professor of psychology - to secure for their daughter a prestigious British passport and British citizenship. She spent her formative years growing up in Nigeria and then the USA and did not move to Britain until she was 16.
Badenoch did not gain her British citizenship through merit but through privilege. She undoubtedly gained her later successes through hard work and merit but her initial trajectory (British citizenship) was purchased because her parents had the wealth to do so.
When Badenoch talks about individual responsibility and meritocracy being more important than group identity in determining ones journey through life she is being deliberately disingenuous. Badenoch is now a British PM in waiting because her parents belonged to the Nigerian professional class who used their money to buy their daughter a British passport.
This privilege of wealth just doesn’t exist for millions of people in the UK. If Britain were truly a meritocracy, as Badenoch says, then you would expect a high degree of social and economic mobility. The exact opposite is the case.
The Government paper, “Class privilege remains entrenched as social mobility stagnates” (30/04/19) had this to say.
“Inequality is now entrenched in Britain from birth to work… the better off are nearly 80% more likely to end up in professional jobs than those from a working-class background. Even when people from disadvantaged backgrounds land a professional job, they earn 17% less than their privileged colleagues.”
What determines the fate of individuals in the UK is wealth and social class. Better off UK parents, just like Badenoch’s mother and father, use their money to buy privilege for their offspring. One of the most import ways this is achieved is by sending their children to private, fee-paying schools. This buys advantages poorer families are denied.
“Access to private schools in Britain matters, given the success these schools have in incubating future elites, and the important discourse surrounding social mobility.” (tandfonline.com: Income, housing wealth, and private school access in Britain.” ; vol 29 2021)
There are many more examples of inequality in Britain that work against a meritocratic society - homelessness, poverty, chronic illness, unemployment, ethnicity, class, prejudice and discrimination, poor quality housing, low-pay. No matter how talented or intelligent an individual may be, any one of these powerful factors may smother that potential and prevent its development.
Badenoch, born into a middleclass family who used their money to secure for their child British citizenship was spared this fate. She was able to come to Britain at the age of 16 to escape “the deteriorating political and economic situation in Nigeria, which had affected her family.” This wasn’t Badenoch as an individual using her intelligence and skills to escape the political upheavals in Nigeria, it was her parent’s wealth.
The use of wealth to buy an advantage for your children may be unfair but it is perfectly understandable, some would argue even acceptable. Maybe, but what is NOT acceptable is the deliberate lie that Britain is a meritocracy, where individual talent and sheer hard work will ensure economic and social success for the individual regardless of class or family circumstance.
In her acceptance speech to the Conservative Party Badenoch said: “The time has come to tell the truth” I couldn’t agree more. So lets stop pretending that “identity politics” doesn’t matter and that class doesn’t exist. Even Badenoch herself once claimed she was a member of the working class.
“Kemi Badenoch claims she 'became working class' after securing a job at McDonald's as a teenager.” (Sky news: 18/09/24)
This ludicrous claim clearly demonstrates Badenoch’s total lack of understanding of what it is like to be working class. Furthermore, it exposes her hypocritical nature, as she is quite prepared to indulge in “identity politics” when she thinks it will be to her advantage.
What is too her advantage now is to appeal to the right wing of her party and use the claim that “identity politics” no longer matters to cover up the fact that wealth and social class are still the real determinates of an individuals future success. She is, like so many Tories before her, protecting the unfair advantages her family and families like her enjoy.
Married to senior banker Hamish Badenoch - educated at a Catholic private school, where current fees range from £30,000 to £40,000 per year - Badenoch dresses up her protection of privilege as anti-identity politics, where class and family circumstance don’t matter as much as individual talent and hard work. Such claims are patently untrue and it really is time for Badenoch to stop peddling the myth that Britain is a meritocracy, and admit to the truth.
