Left-wing anti-Brexit activist Femi Oluwole has accused Kemi Badenoch, a black female contender for leader of the Conservative Party and, by extension, Prime Minister, of “supporting racism”.
Oluwole, who made his name in left-wing circles during the Brexit referendum and subsequent interregnum where Parliament’s execution of the vote to Leave the European Union appeared to be in doubt, chastised Badenoch for not accepting that so-called “systemic racism” is “fact” and should be taught as such in British schools.
In a video posted to social media, Oluwole took aim at a viral speech given by Badenoch, then Minister for Equalities, in 2020, in which she said schools should not be promoting “contested political ideas as if they are established fact”, citing Critical Race Theory (CRT) and “white privilege” as examples.
“By declaring it is illegal to say that systemic racism exists in a country where systemic racism is fact, Kemi Badenoch is definitely supporting racism,” Oluwole said of the Tory leadership hopeful, who lived for a time in Nigeria as well as the United States growing up, insisting that “systemic racism” is indeed settled science.
In the same speech, Badenoch had taken aim at the Black Lives Matter movement, saying that it was “political” and recalling an unpleasant episode in which “white Black Lives Matter protesters call[ed] a black armed police officer guarding Downing Street — I apologise for saying this word — ‘a pet nigger’,” adding that this was “why we do not endorse that movement on this side of the House [of Commons].”
Oluwole, for his part, responded to the backlash against his attempted takedown of Badenoch’s speech by appearing to accuse his detractors of racism.
“Do they not know how bad it looks to respond to a video criticising a politician’s policy, by saying ‘but she’s black, why aren’t you happy?'” he said, caricaturing his critics’ position.
“That’s literally all these people see in us. Our personalities are irrelevant to them,” he alleged.
It should be noted that, despite Badenoch’s strong rhetoric on the possible unlawfulness of teaching CRT and “white privilege” as fact in British schools, the Tory Party has done little to actually stop it — indeed, such ideology is more endemic in British schools now that at any time in history, as well as other government-funded institutions.
Indeed, Breitbart London attempted to contact her shortly after her speech about the National Health Service (NHS) trust pushing “whiteness” ideology through its Senior Leadership Onboarding and Support website, but was told by a staffer who signed their correspondence with gender pronouns that it was nothing to do with her and she would not be commenting.
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